over with a good drive of my shoulder, was not worth more than that sum of rent," I inquired what several other of his friends and neighbours paid, and was satisfactorily answered. They were all charged the full amount exigible on their rent,-and that rent highly, if not exorbitantly rated. My brother's house-tax, for a house in London rated at £300 a-year, was above forty guineas. "Well, my brother pays this. His house is, to be sure, dear rented from its locality,-now what pays Euston Hall, one seat of the Duke of Grafton ?" "What! the show-place-the place we see in the pictures?" "The same." "Why a good round number of hundreds, I'll be sworn." "What pays Blenheim, the Marlborough family's place, you have seen Blenheim?—or what Nottingham Castle, the pride of the Newcastles?" "A swingeing sum, I guess,-if Mr. James Taylor pays above forty guineas for his house in town, and myself £12 for my box at Rochester." "Why, £14 for Euston Hall, and ditto for the Duke of Newcastle's stronghold." "By the Lord Harry, you don't say it! Well there is work ready cut out for me. If I don't affront them, from Land's End to Berwick-uponTweed, and make 'em table their coins, call me a crop-ear. Why the deuce don't the Dukes and Lords pay fair down, like other honest householders ?" "Affront them! poh, poh. That is not so easily done." "You may say that, any way, of those who have their lady mothers and dowager grandmothers pensioners; though their husbands, perhaps, never saw more service than a review day at Hounslow, or in camp on the Sussex coast, played at soldiers. Why, they are meaner beggars than a hobnail's gammer in the work-house, for she would not be there if her son had wherewithal to keep her out." "With this additional circumstance of aggravation, that the honest chaw-bacon is so cruelly taxed in his basket and his store, for the benefit of the grandee parties, that he is rendered totally unable to support his own mother." "Now you are at that bread-tax again. It is all puzzle-work that to me, though I see no busian industrious free-born Englishman has to pay more for his loaf, than a Frenchman or a Hollander." ness "Or to be tied up from buying where he can find bread, or what is the same thing, bread-corn, best and cheapest?" "By Jove not certainly not! Why should he?" "Why, because landlords must be able to clear their mortgage interest, and maintain their splendour; and don't know else how to set about it." "Why the deuce do people let 'em? They shan't pay out of my pocket, though." "Nor out of the pockets of your constituents, if you can help it ?” My constituents! You know that is all humbug; but why should bread and meat be dearer than it was when I was a boy? That's the question. One of the first things I remember was my father speaking about the Hanoverian rats, and Walpole, who brought in the excise and the tax on beer; I'll have off all that ;-but what, now, in my place, Mr. Richard, would be the first thing you would broach in the House? A bill to burn all these spinning-jennies, which spin the Peels and Arkwrights into fine estates, while Englishmen are working for them upon potatoes and water-gruel?—The threshing-machines, too, which take the work out of the poor labourers' teeth, and send them to the work-house ?" I shook my head.—“ I'll be hanged now, sir, if I know what you would be at. Well, if we mayn't burn 'em, what say you to taking the owners bound, that no Englishmen shall be thrown out of bread on this account. When you knock up any office, you always pension off the fellow that held it, and call that only justice, since you take away his employment; and what is more, I will hear nothing of the machines, unless they come bound to afford the men working them, fire, food, and clothing, as Englishmen. should. You are shaking your wise pate again; -do I ask what is unreasonable?" "Only impracticable, I fear." "My next bill shall be to make every body go to church, which you must own will be a vast saving in point of economy, besides promoting piety and good discipline,-no straggling after Methodists, and Ranters, and Anabaptist fellows, no good in paying twice over; first to the parson, which you must do any way, and then to the chapel, for your whims. There will be a good swingeing saving at once." "There are two ways of accomplishing this, -pay him only whose services you require." What, sir?" "I say that I agree with you :-once paying the parson is quite enough; but let it be him you pay, by whom you wish to be served. There are two ways, you see, of accomplishing your excellent, economical object. If every man pay only for the religious ministry he approves, there will be no double-payment, and consequently no hardship." "You are at that puzzle-work again. Don't you see, man, that the landlords and farmers are bound to pay the parsons to preach in church to the poor people; so why need they tax and starve themselves, to keep up chapels?" With all this, and though the Governor's repugnance to the " snivelling, canting Methodist fellows," never was fully conquered, he was more easily brought to see that tithes, and every kind of church revenues, were national property, than if born heir to the advowson of a good benefice or two. Still he was sadly perplexed-for as yet he had little more knowledge of any public principle, or political question, than ninety of the hundred of the young, or even the middle-aged gentlemen, then chosen members of the Honourable House. | lible" Widow Walpole," who, he knew, would do everything good for him, except marrying him, had called in the objectionable satellite of Esculapius. Great gossip as the Public or the World is, in Rochester as everywhere else, she had never either smiled, sneered, or surmised aught evil or amiss of Mrs. Walpole's friendly attentions to the insulated old bachelor. The lady, it was known, neither wanted a husband for herself, nor, now at least, a legacy for her prosperous son. But when the Governor was seized with the election-fever, of which many as strong men have died, Mrs. Walpole was making a distant and long visit to an early friend; and her post by the Governor's bedside, was usurped by a lady of very different character. Though I failed in most other points, proba- | would have paid unaudited, save that the infalbly from attempting too much at once, I succeeded completely in demonstrating to my pupil the propriety and necessity of a free trade in the first necessaries of life. It was a proof of the integrity of his mind, and the singleness of his heart, that he believed the landed proprietors of Great Britain only required to have the same facts clearly set before them, to cease from grinding their fellow-subjects by a monopoly for which posterity must think with contempt of the men of the 19th century, who endured it so long, after fully perceiving its iniquity. The Governor came to know them better; but unfortunately he never found an opportunity of entering the lists for the labourer, against, as he said, those who thrust their greedy fingers into his dish; and who, for every slice of his loaf that went to feed his children, subtracted a half one, or what was equal its value, for their own benefit. The Governor had only spoken once in the House, though he voted stanchly against Catholic Emancipation, and for the abolition of the duty on Baltic timber, when an election committee, after all fitting deliberation, the examination of a host of witnesses, and numerous reports, declared his election void! Bamboo was the sitting member, -and the bill of the Red Dragon was yet unsettled! The poor Governor! I give myself praise for the long-suffering with which I bore his transports of rage at first, and his sallies of temper long afterwards. A bilious attack ended in a violent fever, which acted as a counter-irritant in mitigation of the worst symptoms. To save the patient from a fatal relapse, Mr. Walpole, during his recovery, parried the attacks of Red Dragon, and, afterwards, by threatening Jew, agent, and landlord, with exposure, effected a considerable deduction from the bill of election expenses. The final settlement left our old friend minus L.5700, a considerable quantity of black bile, and all the fragments of his honest prejudices for merry Old England. This affair brought the infirmities of old age with rapid strides upon the Governor. At the commencement of the canvass, though verging on fourscore, Governor Fox looked more like a hale man of sixty-five; but a painful change was now perceptible. He never fully recovered his flesh, or former toughness. Toughness, rather than mere strength, had been alike his physical and spiritual quality; and though, "Even in his ashes lived their wonted fires," it was easy to perceive that gradual decrepitude of mind was to be the sure attendant of an enfeebled frame. The Governor was stimulated to a desperate rally. The cause I proceed to relate. During any of his previous attacks of illness, which though, like everything about him, violent, were unfrequent, Mrs. Walpole had acted the intelligent, friendly woman's part in the bachelor establishment. It was she counselled and directed Black Sam, and saw that the nurse rigidly obeyed the instructions of the Baptist apothecary, whose long bills the Governor never When I first saw Miss Catherine Chadleigh, at a military ball, she might have been about thirty-six, though she was still what is called 66 a remarkably handsome woman." She was the eldest of the five daughters of a half-pay lieutenant of foot, who, in consequence of severe wounds received in India, had early obtained retirement, and now held a small office in the public works at Chatham. The whole family, parents and children, were strikingly military in tastes, manners, habits, morals:-gay to levity, fond of show, and, above all, wonderfully skilled in the art of maintaining a dashing exterior on very narrow means. The ladies among the Rochester and Stroud civilians could not comprehend their economy. It was a constant, enduring theme of wonder. It appeared to them, at tea-table calculations, that the whole income of Lieutenant-in common parlance Captain—Chadleigh, was not enough to keep his beautiful girls in slippers and sashes. How clean cards, waxlights, and refreshments were afforded for the frequent evening parties he gave the officers, was a deeper mystery; but it was understood that among the many accomplishments of the Chadleigh family was dexterous play. Even the youngest girl-Chatti, she of thirteen-was more than a match at ecarté, loo, vint-et-une, brag, &c. &c. &c., for any lately-joined officer of engineers not to speak of fledgling ensigns and raw lieutenants. Yet there was no unfair play-no high stakes-all was superior knowledge and dexterity; and the young men were contented to lose a trifle in the evenings to the fair and elegant creatures who graced their morning promenade, sung duets with them, or were their partners in the evening dance. Mrs. Chadleigh contrived that it should be a difficulty, and reckoned a favour, as it certainly was an enjoyment, to the young subalterns, to be admitted to her tea and card parties. Though it was doubtful to the Chatham ladies whether any of the girls would "settle to advantage," it was quite clear that each might, without much difficulty, "scamble up some sort of husband" from among the corps after corps of officers, which this transport station, and the frequent changes during the war, threw in their way. The eldest--the most beautiful and the most admired woman of the really handsome family, remained the doubtful case. Three of the younger girls had married under twenty; the respective matrimonial prizes being a lieutenant of marines, an assistant surgeon, and a purser in the navy. Chatti, always celebrated as the cleverest girl of the set, caught a captain of the engineers. These were small doings in the eyes of Miss Chadleigh. The homage of succeeding generations of military men had done less to swell her pride, and stimulate her ambition, than the idle patronage, or friendship, as it was called, of a lady of quality, the wife of a retired colonel in the neighbourhood, who, in her comparative solitude and imaginary poverty, found the society, accomplishments, and flattery of a pretty young woman, with whom she needed to be on no ceremony, a relief from the tedium of Chatham life. Lady Louisa paid Miss Chadleigh attentions which the four younger Miss Chadleighs considered quite enviable. Lady Louisa drove her friend on airings in her pony phaeton,-invited her to spend days, and finally weeks and months at her house,-presented her with showy dresses, and enriched her with castoff trinkets and other faded relics of her own past age of beauty and belleship. She did more: she introduced her favourite to the Colonel's ancient friends and dinner-guests, several of whom might have been considered "a great catch,"-— Governor Fox being then esteemed the worst party on the veteran list. But Miss Chadleigh was yet far off from what the ladies call "Last Prayers." She was still a youthful ambitious beauty,―the Governor a cross, vulgar, old bore; and the nephew of Lady Louisa, the Honourable George Tynwald, a late Etonian, a favourite at Windsor, second son of an Earl, and a newly joined cornet in the Guards, surpassed every other cornet in every desirable quality she had ever imagined of man or boy:-he was but nineteen; it was his only fault. True, he was poor, and Miss Chadleigh knew all the unpleasant attendants on genteel or titled poverty,-but then the family had interest :-there never yet was real cause to fear that the second son of an Earl, so connected with many noble families and government people, as the Honourable George, would ever suffer real want. Lady Louisa and the Colonel were miserably poor; yet they kept a handsome establishment, servants and horses, good table, a pony phaeton,-saw company, and made visits and excursions. Miss Chadleigh, at twenty-five, wanted not for prudence; but the poverty of an Earl's daughter-in-law presented nothing to alarm the daughter of Lieutenant Chadleigh. Then Lady Louisa, and the other noble relatives of the Honourable George, might be as indignant as they chose, but they must be forced to acknowledge that love only-pure. disinterested, resistless passion-had been her sole motive in one night packing up the coral necklaces and bracelets, and Roman pearls, with which her hostess had presented her, and stealing through the shrubbery of the Lodge to where the chaise waited, under the shade of a row of poplars, with the impatient lover. The young VOL. I.-NO. VIII. -a cornet's servant, a party to the enterprise, imagined that, in playing the lady false, he would best serve himself, and also his boyish master; who, he perceived, had become rather alarmed at the length to which the affair had got, and, doubtful whether he had any true vocation at this time to a Scotch matrimony. It was not wholly for nothing that the honourable George had cost his noble father L.1200 at Eton. There undoubtedly is superiority in well-cultivated masculine intellect. At eighteen, the Etonian fairly outwitted a practised coquette of twentyfive, at least all the Chatham ladies whispered as much; and it was certain that, on the third day, the lingering runaway lovers allowed themselves to be overtaken near Nottingham, on their desultory progress northwards. At this time, no mercy was shown to Miss Chadleigh; though from ten to fifteen years afterwards, the ladies declared, almost unanimously, that Major General Tynwald ought to have married Catherine Chadleigh, instead of his cousin. Until that marriage took place, Miss Chadleigh,-no longer the young and beautiful, but still the wonderfully handsome Miss Chadleigh, whose charms had been celebrated and toasted wherever British keels plough the sea, or the Union Jack flies and British swords hew their way to victory,-had not wholly despaired, or had not formed any decided plan. If any matrimonial overtures had been cogitated, in the meanwhile, by transient admirers, one class of charitable female friends were ever ready to suggest, that after her disappointment with Captain, Major, and, latterly, General Tynwald, Miss Chadleigh, they were sure, would never marry ; and another set, more frank and more sagacious, repeated the old sentence of condemnation on the treacherous juvenile lover, who ought to have married. The opinions at mess were still more decided. Time, which had ripened Miss Chadleigh into a most beautiful and lovely girl, next into a remarkably handsome woman of thirty-five, and then into a wonderfully handsome woman of forty-eight, had made Lady Louisa an aged and widowed card-playing dowager, approaching seventy, and patched up a truce between her and her early favourite, after many years of hatred and estrangement. They were necessary to each other; and Mrs. Chadleigh could well spare from her humble home, her ambitious, chagrined, and now fearfully-tempered daughter, who vented upon her poor mother the misanthropic hatred and wrath, inspired by disappointment, deserved and wholly self-incurred, but not the less bitter and rankling to a proud and imperious mind thwarted in all its hopes and affections. Between this lady and Governor Fox there had been almost open in the early period of their acquaintance; and, indeed, my frank friend had said everywhere, from the first, that Chadleigh should marry off his handsome daughters as fast as possible, for they would assuredly go to the devil else, especially Miss Kate, who, at the game of ambitious 2Q feud matrimony, would find young ladies were more apt to be tricked than young lords. Tippoo's mother, if there be in existence such a lady. He will die as he has lived, your singleminded, unwedded adorer: "No maid will owe her scathe to him,— He never loved but you."" "Don't be so absurd, Edward, unless you wish to affront me. I do not blame his attentions, if their motives be clear to Miss Chadleigh. From her, one would believe, that he certainly entertains a serious design of proposing for her, were Lady Louisa,-whom she ostentatiously affects that she never will leave,—removed," "A trick to neutralize you, mother. I do believe she imagines you will have the Governor yet." Mrs. Walpole was now really offended. "I will hold no more discourse on this subject with you, Edward. I only wished the Governor's friends to comprehend, that whether such a marriage were likely to conduce to his happiness and respectability or not, it may very probably be brought about. Half Chatham believes it a settled thing." "And laughs accordingly.-No, no, mother. I can't give my consent. Let him make Miss Kate his heir, if he chooses, to what reasonable or unreasonable extent seems to him good; but he shan't marry her, I promise you, if I can help it." Though the lady had cheated him, or something like it, at cards, by her dexterous and rapid play, and ridiculed him almost to his face, for the amusement of Lady Louisa, the Governor did not exult long nor immoderately in the downfal of the ambitious projects of Miss Chadleigh. A part of the wrath of his naturally candid mind was even directed against the stripling lover, of whose heartlessness and juvenile depravity of mind he spoke in terms that produced a rupture of some years duration with the Lady Louisa. However, in the rapid succession of Chatham inhabitants, the old familiar faces drew together again. The Dowager Lady Louisa, and Miss Chadleigh, at last, self-invited, honoured the Governor's annual high banquet by their presence; and he was occasionally seen at the card-tables of the Lodge, losing a few crowns, he knew not how, but with tolerably good grace. But the first hearty reciprocation of regard arose out of the affair of Black Sam. Both ladies were violently of the Governor's faction, and both proclaimed it; and the satire and mimickry which Miss Chadleigh indulged against their mutual enemies, the She-Saints, captivated his whole heart. Her wit was again reported at the Mess as faithfully as in her most brilliant days. When the Governor met Miss Chadleigh shopping, he now gave her his arm home to the Lodge gate, and sometimes thought himself bound in politeness to stay dinner or return to tea, if Lady Louisa vouchsafed graciously to invite him. At charity-military escort of the pony phaeton in which Miss balls and fancy-fairs, he became their approved squire. When rallied by the other veterans on the apparent flirtation, the Governor-such is the latent vanity of man's heart-would chuckle aloud, and take as a personal compliment such sayings, as, "What would Kate Chadleigh have taken twenty years back to have been seen on the promenade beaued by old Governor Fox!" His turn was come then; the proud beauty, now an oldish woman, though still a wonderfully handsome woman, and in very remarkable preservation, had come down a peg, had descended to his level, would be glad, perhaps, to accept of him,-no saying! The Governor repressed the soft idea; but when any of his dowager friends hinted that it was believed a fixed thing, he only laughed the louder. Mrs. Walpole, the most charitable, the mildest, and kindest of womankind, at last thought it necessary to hint danger. It was upon a visit which Edward and I made her on a Saturday, a few weeks before we heard the false report of the Governor's death, that she first spoke. "The death of Lady Louisa will leave Miss Chadleigh, with her habits, a very helpless unprotected woman," said she, considerately; "unless, indeed, there be any serious intention of matrimony entertained by our old friend.". "No fear, mother," cried Walpole. "I know what you mean now, that Miss Chadleigh is likely to entrap the old Governor; but no fear of him. He would as soon think of marrying The Governor dined with us on that day, as he always did when Mr. Walpole visited his mother. In the morning we had met him, the walking Chadleigh slowly drove the fat, arm-chair Lady Louisa. The exceeding graciousness of the younger lady to Walpole, who had never been a favourite, was a suspicious circumstance. She even manœuvred that we should both be invited to the card party at the Lodge on the same evening, which we however declined. I have said the Governor dined with us. Immediately after Mrs. Walpole left the dining. room, we began our concerted plan of operation. It is told, that a maiden lady of fourscore, on being asked at what age a woman ceases to think of marriage, candidly told the interrogator, he must apply to an older woman than herself. The age at which an old man's vanity, in affairs regarding the sex, becomes extinct, is equally dubious. The Governor, when rallied on his conquest, and the prevalent rumours in the Chatham circles, seemed highly gratified and flattered, though he became at last angry to perceive that we could seriously believe he entertained the remotest idea that he intended to marry any one, and least of all Miss Chadleigh, however willing she might be in the humility of twoscore-and-ten, to accept of his fortune and his hand. | perty to her "beloved nephew," the MajorGeneral, and her wardrobe to her "dear companion and domestic friend, Miss Catherine Chadleigh." I shall not attempt to paint the rage of the proud, disappointed, and betrayed woman; for the old lady whose humours she had so long borne, and whose household she had superintended, an unpaid servant, had often in the lulls following a squall, assured her that her interests were not overlooked. The letter addressed by the agent of the principal legatee and sole executor, the once Honourable George, to his aunt's companion, his own early love, contained as polite a turning-out-of-doors as could well be couched in ten lines of English. It was delivered to Miss Chadleigh, by the same traitorous or faithful servant, who, so many years before, had disconcerted her scheme of elopement. Then he had been the valet of a cornet, now he was the butler and confidential man of a General, who, in virtue of his family interest, held several good posts. Mr. Tomkins proceeded, in right of his master, to remove the seals | affixed by the Rochester attorney to the old lady's repositories, and to make inventories preliminary to the sale of every article the Lodge contained::-even the old lady's pet cockatoo and tortoise-shell cat were booked. Miss Chadleigh, by a message sent up to her chamber, was requested to remove her goods and chattels the wardrobe,-namely, the trumpery finery, faded satins, moth-eaten furs, and court lappets of previous generations,—as soon as suited her convenience; as the Lodge was already let to a friend of the Major-General's, and the sale was to take place immediately. Miss Chadleigh gave instant orders for the removal of her properties; but it was not clear to the legal interpreters of the will of the Lady Louisa, that the fair legatee was entitled to the walnut-tree drawers, the japan cabinets, and carved chests, containing the aforesaid wardrobe; and she was too high-spirited and too indignant to enter into debate on the point with the despised valet in brief authority. Her resolution was instantly taken; and in one half hour after she despatched a note to Rochester by the discharged gardener, Governor Fox drove up to the gate in a chaise, to conduct her, as she had earnestly requested him, to their "friend" Mrs. Walpole's, where he understood she was invited and expected. Miss Chadleigh was at this moment in the act of assisting a hot, perspiring servant girl, who, armful on armful, flung from a chamber window into the yard, the miscellaneous contents of drawers, trunks, and wardrobes, the finery of the Lady Louisa. Miss Chadleigh's own corded trunks and piles of band boxes were already arranged in the hall. "Are you going to open a Rag Fair with the old lady's trumpery?" inquired the Governor; as he eyed with a feeling of amusement, the tagrag legacy of all hues and textures, fluttering upon the gravel. "I am about to perform an auto da fe, sir,-an act of faith, and one of purification and penance Rake these rags closer together, Molly. Nay, use your mop, pile them higher. I claim for myself, Governor Fox, the honour of applying the torch. The discharged servants stood by grinning; the Governor was lost in perplexed amazement, while Miss Chadleigh towering in the majesty of tragic indignation, swept by him in her gorgeous panoply of fresh black crape, bombazeen, and broad hems, and fired the pile. She stood sternly looking on, till silk, satin, tissue and brocade, muslin, lawn, and lace, fell together into ashes; and then majestically taking the arm of the Governor, led him, rather than was led by him, to the carriage. What an evening of talk that was in Rochester, Chatham, and even Stroud!-Maidstone heard of the cremation. The rumour by the next morning reached Canterbury, was carried by coach to Dover, and thence across the channel, before it found its sure way into the newspapers, under the title, The Toadie's Legacy-Curious Affair in the Fashionable World. "What a fury what a vixen!" cried one party. "Such a high spirit! so noble a mind!" exclaimed another. Every one spoke in superlatives of the daring deed of Miss Chadleigh, whose instant marriage with Governor Fox was now universally affirmed, and fondly believed, at all events, by the milliner, mercer, and perfumer, in whose books the lady stood several figures deep. Had the Governor, it was remarked, not gone in person, and carried her directly from the lodge to his friend Mrs. Walpole's cottage,-where no doubt she was to remain till the ceremony took place? The only doubt remaining, that could disturb' the public mind was, whether the marriage was to be by bans or a special license; or if the bride was to have pearls or diamonds. The period of mourning would cause no delay, after the funeral pile Miss Chadleigh's affection had reared in honour of the memory of her noble patroness. Miss Scrag had indeed with her own eyes, and they were piercers into such affairs, seen Miss Chadleigh and the Governor, only yesterday, choosing a paper for his best chamber. Clusters of pansies on a salmon-coloured ground had been preferred by the lady at a push, the paper could be hung and a new mantel-piece inserted, long before the new-married pair returned from their honey-moon excursion. the meanwhile, though Mrs. Walpole possessed largely that better part of politeness, kindness and benevolence, she could, after a little time, have spared the guest who had manoeuvred herself into the Cottage, uninvited and unexpected, but certainly not unwelcome in her present friendless and pitiable condition. Governor Fox was aware that the "widow Walpole" had previously entertained no particular affection either for the Lady Louisa, her companion, or any of "that set." Her friends, indeed, lay rather among the She-Saints; and this, so far as he knew, was her only weakness; but kindness and tender humanity for every creature in distress, to her were so natural, that he was not sur In |