the latter, within one week of each other; but not till they had blessed Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, and rejoiced that they had left him so well provided for.

Now, then, our hero depended solely upon the crabbed old uncle and Miss Helen Convolvulus; the former, though a baronet and a satirist, was a banker and a man of business: he looked very distastefully at the Hyperion curls and white teeth of Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy.

,, If I make you my heir," said he you will continue the bank ! “

,, Certainly, sir!" said the nephew.

,, I expect

,, Humph!" grunted the uncle,,, a pretty fellow for a banker!"

Debtors grew pressing to Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy grew pressing to Miss Helen Convolvulus. ,, It is a dangerous thing," said she, timidly,,,to marry a man so admired; will you always be faithful?"

,, By heaven!" cried the lover.

,,Heigho!" sighed Miss Helen Convolvulus, and Lord Rufus Pumilion entering, the conversation was changed. But the day of the marriage was fixed; and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy bought a new curricle. By Apollo, how handsome he looked in it! A month before the wedding-day the uncle died. Miss Helen Convolvulus was quite tender in her condolences ,,Cheer up, my Ferdinand," said she,,,for your sake, I have discarded Lord Rufus Pumilion!" ,, Adorable condescension!" cried our hero; but Lord Rufus Pumilion is only four feet two, and has hair like a peony.

,,All men are not so handsome as Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy!" was the reply.

Away goes our hero, to be present at the opening of his uncle's will.

,,I leave," said the testator (who, I have before said was a bit of a satirist),,, my share of the bank, and the whole of my fortune, legacies excepted, to"

(here Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy wiped his beuatiful eyes with a cambric handkerchief, exquisitely brodé) „my natural son, John Spriggs, an industrious, painstaking youth, who will do credit to the bank. I did once intend to have made my nephew Ferdinand my heir; but so curling a head can have no talent for accounts. I want my successor to be a man of business, not beauty; and Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy is a great deal too handsome for a banker; his good looks will, no doubt, win him any heiress in town. Meanwhile, I leave him, to buy a dressing case, a thousand pounds."

,,A thousand devils!" said Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, banging out of the room. He flew to his mistress. She was not at home.,,Lies" says the Italian proverb, ,,have short legs;" but truths, if they are unpleasant, have terribly long ones! The next day Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy received a most obliging note of dismissal.

,,I wish you every happiness," said Miss Helen Convolvulus, in conclusion - but my friends are right; you are much too handsome for a husband!" And the week following, Miss Helen Convolvulus became Lady Rufus Pumilion.

„Alas! sir,“ said the bailiff, as a day or two after the dissolution of Parliament, he was jogging along with Mr. Ferdinand Fitzroy, in a hackney coach bound to the King's Bench, ,, Alas! sir, what a pity it is to take so handsome a gentleman to prison!"

THE BEECH-TREE'S PETITION.

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL.

O leave this barren spot to me!
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!
Though bush or floweret never grow
My dark unwarming shade below;
Nor summer bud perfume the dew
Of rosy blush, or yellow hue;
Nor fruits of autumn, blossom - born;
My green and glossy leaves adorn;
Nor murmuring tribes from me derive
Th' ambrosial amber of the hive;
Yet leave this barren spot to me:
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!

Thrice twenty summers I have seen
The sky grow bright, the forest green;
And many a wintry wind have stood
In bloomless, fruitless solitude,
Since childhood in my pleasant bower
First spent its sweet and sportive hour,
Since youthful lovers in my shade
Their vows of truth and rapture made;
And on my trunk's surviving frame
Carved many a long-forgotten name.
Oh! by the sighs of gentle sound
First breathed upon this sacred ground;
By all that love has whispered here,
Or Beauty heard with ravish'd ear;
As Love's own altar honour me,
Spare, woodman, spare the beechen tree!

THE GENERAL AND HIS LADY.

A SKETCH.

BY MISS MITFORD.

All persons, of a certain standing in life remember for certainly nothing was ever more unforgetable the great scarlet fever of England when volunteering was the order of the day; when you could scarcely meet with a man who was not under some denomination or other, a soldier; when a civil subject could hardly find a listener; when little boys played at reviewing and young ladies learned the sword exercise. It was a fine ebullition of national feeling of loyalty, and of public spirit, and cannot be looked back to without respect; but, at the moment, the strange contrasts the perpetual discrepancies and the comical self-importance which it produced and exhibited, were infinitely diverting. I was a very little girl at the time; but even now I cannot recollect without laughing, the appearance of a cornet of yeomanry cavalry who might have played Falstaff without stuffing, and was obliged to complete his military decorations by wearing (and how he contrived to keep up the slipping girdle, one can hardly imagine) three silken sashes sewed into one! To this day, too, I remember the chuckling delight with which a worthy linen - draper of my acquaintance heard himself addressed as Captain, whilst measuring a yard of ribbon; pretending to make light of the appellation, but evidently as proud of his title as a newly dubbed knight, or a peer of the last edition; and I never shall forget the

astonishment with which I beheld a field officer, in his double epaulettes, advance obsequiously to the carriage-door, to receive an order for five shillings - worth of stationery! The prevailing spirit fell in exactly with the national character, loyal, patriotic, sturdy and independent; very proud, and a little vain; fond of excitement, and not indifferent to personal distinction: the whole population borne along by one laudable and powerful impulse, and yet each man preserving, in the midst of that great leveller, military discipline, his individual peculiarities and blameless self-importance. It was a most amusing era!

In large country towns, especially when they mustered two or three different corps, and the powerful stimulant of emulation was superadded to the original martial fury, the goings on of these Captain Pattypans furnished a standing comedy, particularly when aided by the solemn etiquette and strong military spirit of their wives, who took precedence according to the rank of their husbands, from the Colonel's lady down to the Corporal's and were as complete martialists, as proud of the services of their respective regiments, and as much impressed with the importance of field-days and reviews, as if they had actually mounted the cockade and handled the firelock in their own proper persons. Foote's inimitable farce was more than realized; and the ridicules of that period have only escaped being perpetuated in a new Mayor of Garratt, by the circumstances of the whole world, dramatists and all, being involved in them.

,,The lunacy was so ordinary, that the whippers were in arms too."

That day is past. Even the yeomanry cavalry,