But this discovery of Admiral Drake being so closely allied with his future son-in-law, effectually removed all the earl's scruples, and the marriage was at once announced in the Morning Post.

The trousseau was already ordered, and the wedding-cake actually made, when an accident occurred that put a drag upon the progress of proceedings. The lover of Lady Rachel, a young barrister, who wrote beautiful poetry, and polkaed, as Lady Rachel expressed it, "like an angel," was in Christie's Sale Rooms when a portrait of Admiral Drake was put up for auction. It was so unlike the one of the friend who was shortly to rob him of the treasure of his heart, that little as he could afford it, he bought the picture, and laid it before the earl. The two were compared, and certainly we were no more alike than Mrs. Gamp and Hebe. But Mr. Smith declared I had been in the possession of his family for hundreds of years; and it was as much as I could do to keep my countenance, when he gravely asserted that it was a common observation amongst his friends, how like he was to the admiral, especially about the cheek, and that any one could see he was a genuine Drake. The earl was only too willing to believe this, and the young barrister was sent out of the mansion, as a base impostor and a false accuser. Grief settled like a mildew upon his heart, and in his despair he accepted a judgeship at Sydney. Before leaving England, however, he determined to have his portrait taken in his new wig, and present it as a token of affection to his dearest Rachel. Chance took him to the very house in which I was born in Berner's-street,-my father was still living there, but in a very different style to the period when he threw me like a straw on the world to rise by myself. His landlord had died suddenly, his wife had followed him a year afterwards, and my master found himself, one fine morning, left the sole legatee of a capital house, besides the reversionary interest in all the Italian boys and smugglers he had peopled it with for the last eight years. Since then he had made old pictures "better than new" on his own account, and had found making use of other people's names such a profitable business, that he had his French cook, was a director of almost every railway, and possessed a gallery of pictures which, considering it contained a genuine specimen of every painter in the world, he was proud of stating was "richer than anything else of the kind in Europe.

My master received the barrister (Julius O'Flaherty was his name) with all the affability of a genius, and at once conducted

him to his studio. Here he was struck with the wonderful likeness of so many Greenwich pensioners to the Admiral Drake of his hated rival. No wonder at it, for they were all twin brothers of myself, being copies of the very same model who used to come for ninepence an hour and his beer. Julius alluded to the singularity of this prolific reduplication of the same likeness, and my master, being in a condition of life to afford to tell a joke against himself, explained that these portraits were always kept on hand to supply people with a ready-made ancestor, the difficulty of the same likeness being got over by putting on a cocked hat and feather for a field-marshal, a wig and gown for a Lord Chancellor, a telescope in the right hand for an admiral, a goose-quill for an author, and a skull for a saint or a doctor. How Julius jumped and shrieked when he heard this story! But he lost no time; he thanked my master briefly, and then ran out, leaving his companion to suppose he was nothing better than a madman, or a Frenchman, just escaped from Paris. He had scarcely had time to come to any conclusion, however, before the agitated O'Flaherty was back again. He hurried my master into a hackney-coach, and at least five-and-twenty of the pensioners were bundled in with him. They arrived at the earl's mansion just as a procession of Broughams was driving off to St. George's, Hanover-square. Julius charged them to stop as they valued their lives, and my master, escorted by his faithful band of pensioners, was shown up to the drawing-room. Here the earl joined them. Julius, with a fluency of words, a safe guarantee that he must ultimately arrive to great distinction at the bar, opened his case. He painted in words that burnt-and blistered as they burnt-his anguish of mind, his despair, his discovery, his hope, his ecstasy, his more than bliss, all within the last ten minutes. "There, proud earl," he said, in a voice of lightning and thunder, "there lie your ancestors!" and he laid a stunning emphasis on the word "lie." My master, at this point, stepped forward and explained these allusions, for the barrister had so overlaid his speech with Irish images, that the sense of it had been crushed under its extreme beauty. He adapted his powers of arguing to the plainest understanding; for, with the magic aid of a sponge and a little turpentine, he made me throw off my admiral's uniform, and lo and behold! I appeared once more in my original character of a Greenwich pensioner. The guano-merchant, guessing the issue of this metamorphosis, quickly left the house: the young barrister then

stated that his visit had another motive beside unmasking the unprincipled and rescuing the helpless. It was to beg the earl's acceptance of 3000 shares in a railway of which he was chairman, director, and standing counsel. The old earl burst into tears at this affecting incident (for the shares were at 2 premium), and simply said, "This is too much." He gave his children his blessing; it was all, by the bye, he had to give-and that same day Julius and Rachel were married.

I have remained ever since in the O'Flaherty family. I have a very comfortable place near the fire, and am a great favourite with everybody. Julius often talks about me; and whenever he alludes to my early career the whole room laughs. I am sure I enjoy the fun as much as anybody; and my relating the unvarnished tale of my own life is a proof that my position has not turned my head. I am very glad, however, that I am permanently fixed. I never was fond of moving about. I always had a dread lest I might tumble down in my old age to be the Marquis of Granby to some low public-house. Thank heaven, I am insured against any drop of that sort, and now I have only hope, one master ambition, and that is that some day I may pass through the world as a genuine Raphael. More improbable things than this have come to pass, if you will only believe the word of an "Old Picture."

HORACE MAYHEW..

THE MISSION OF THE PRESS.

To arrive at the true source of the hostility between the bar and the press, we must follow, through some of its ramifications, the mission of the latter. Every man is now aware that there is both a natural and a political system of society. The former grows from the laws of man's being, the latter is the offspring of conquest; and such as we now know it to be to our cost, it is the consequence of a great original wrong. Of the political system the bar is an essential part; of the natural system the press is a portion.

It is possible to trace the bar with all its privileges; its exclusive right to plead before the judges; its establishment as a separate profession; its monopoly, and even its wigs and gowns, up to some statute or some regulation, which the judges and the benchers, by the authority of law, were empowered to make. So it is possi

ble to trace the rise of the royal navy and the profession of a naval officer-from the first general requisition of Ethelred on all the lands of the kingdom to form a fleet, through successive statutes and regulations levying taxes for its support, or empowering its officers to seize men for its service to the last and yet unfulfilled regulation for weeding its muster-roll of those pensioners the aristocracy has encumbered it with. But the newspaper press was not established by law. Like cultivating the ground, it springs from the wants of man, and is essential to the development of society. The authors of the political system have continually endeavoured, by sharp libel laws and by various restrictions, to impede the extension of the press, and limit its usefulness; but no enactment of theirs, neither the common nor the statute law, called it into being. Accordingly, under one form or another, large, liberal, and world-ranging, like the metropolitan journals, or narrow, cramped, and strictly local or technical, like the little bits of coarse dingy paper that are tolerated by the despots of Germany, newspapers now exist in all the countries, however different their political institutions, of the civilised world. The Sepoys have newspapers; the Russians cannot do without them; they are published in Turkey and China; and they have already taken their station as part of society at New Zealand and the Sandwich Islands. They are most useful, most comprehensive, most numerous, and most sought after, as in the United States, England and France, where natural society is most, and political society least, developed. They are valued most where man is most free. A newspaper is a power at New York; it is next to a nullity at Berlin. Thus, the bar and the press in their origin are parts of hostile and contending systems; the latter is essential to civilisation, and increases in strength, as society throws off the trammels of that system to which the bar belongs.

The mission or duty of the farmer in the natural order of society is to produce as much food as he can at the least cost. So the mission of the manufacturer is to make clothing or cutlery abundant and cheap. What in the same order of society is the mission of the newspaper writer? While the bar has for its object to perplex, confound, and mystify, in order to keep other men in political thraldom, the press seeks to make all things straight and clear, and free man from all shackles, but those of reason. Even the journals which support an erroneous system, do it solely by an appeal to that power. The press collects facts; it winnows the

mental productions of each day and every people, and hoards up the useful results. It watches for events, it gathers information from every quarter, and spreads it to the same extent. It warns the world against threatening dangers as they arise. It catches the first light of every dawning improvement, and brings it before. every inquisitive and admiring eye. The true mission of the press, its very soul, is to gather and diffuse truth. That is its solemn duty; and remembering how small a portion of a daily journal is composed of questionable matter, we have no hesitation in saying that to a great extent it actually performs that duty.

We are well aware that a contradictory opinion is afloat in society. People habitually toast the freedom of the press, and declare that it is like the air they breathe-if they have it not they die: nevertheless, there exists amongst them a slight dread and a practical contempt for the object of their theoretic love; and seizing hold of little discrepancies-the ten thousandth part of its daily contents they also habitually speak of the lying press. Gathering information from all quarters, being open to the complaints of the lowest man in the community, and the highest employing it to communicate his views to mankind, representing all classes, their passions and prejudices, as well as their reason, it is, in common with everything human-liable to error, and occasionally circulates falsehoods and calumnies. That, however, is the exception, not the rule. Every newspaper writer acknowledges his responsibility to scrutinise every paragraph, to separate the truth from the falsehood, the good from the evil, to promote good only, and circulate only truth. He is morally and solemnly pledged to society to perform that duty, and the confidence which is now universally placed in the bulk of all the statements of newspapers proves that it is in general duly and honourably performed.

When unreflecting persons speak inconsiderately of "the lying press," they must have some standard of comparison which is infinitely more truth-telling. The bar, which notoriously hires out its tongue, like church-bells, to sound any tune, supplies no such standard. Nor does any class of men in their private intercourse. Traders in their dealings, men and women of fashion in their polite communications, surgeons and physicians, and notorious teeth-drawers, to soothe or beguile their patients, with almost every other class, indulge in a license of assertion which finds no counterpart in the newspaper press. Throughout society, anecdotes are