Selina," have been too happy. We have each had our trials, and I believe they have improved our characters. This world, you know, is a state of trial, and our chief, perhaps our only business in it, is to do our duty. Let us then consider what, as Christians and fellow-creatures, it is our duty to do for these unfortunate people." "I think," said he, "it is our duty, for the sake of example, that they should be left to their miserable fate." "As for him," said Selina, "I agree with you, but for her.-You have owned to me yourself that she is weak and helpless. She is also beautiful; may not poverty and want drive her into a state still more horrid to think of? O think of that, and if we can but save her." Mr Mordant shook his head, and said, "It must not be. I could not bear that that wretched man should think that he still continues to make a dupe of me. I must not." “Well, but,” said Mrs Mordant, "though you cannot, may not I? You know you allowed me to call the little money my god-mother left me my own. May not I appropriate something from that source for this poor creature just enough to save her from the peril I dread?-If it does not save her, I promise you to withdraw it." Mr Mordant was silent.-She continued," If you will allow me to mention the subject to my brother, he would, I am confident, keep the secret faithfully, and by his means I could contrive to have the money sent quarterly, without its being possible for them to discover where it comes from." "Well," said Mr Mordant, "I will consider of it, but I believe," added he tenderly, "I believe it will end in your having your wish." At this moment a servant entered to say a person was come from the glove shop to take Mrs Mordant's directions about some gloves. Mrs M. looked exceedingly vexed at this unseasonable interruption, and said has tily, "Desire the man will call again to-morrow.-Stay, I have no right to trifle with his time,-wait a few moments, and I will send the answer." She then took some gloves, and, unfolding the parcel that had been brought from Lady Mary, wrapped them up in me, and said to the servant, "Desire the man to take these back to the shop, and I will call there myself during the morning, and give my own directions." Thus was I in an instant, and when I was least prepared for it, hurried off from people to whom I found myself becoming every moment more attached. To confess the truth, (and I hope I may be pardoned for attempting to make a resistance against my destiny,) when I discovered what Mrs Mordant was going to do with me, I made myself as stiff and intractable as I could, in hopes she would suffer me to remain upon her table, and find for the gloves some more yielding envelope. But it was in vain; and I was, as I have already said, hurried off to a shop in Oxford Street, where, after the gloves had been given to the mistress of the shop, I was carelessly thrown on the floor of a little dark back parlour, where I was in danger of being trampled upon every moment. CHAP. IV. I did not continue long in this neglected situation, for a good-natured girl picked me up, and threw me on a table that stood near a little window that looked into the shop. From hence I could see every thing that passed there, and I was exceedingly amused by the busy scene that was going on: for, on account of the approaching general mourning, the shop was crowded by great numbers of people, who came in to buy love ribbands and black gloves: and I could write an essay on physiognomy, from the observations I had thus the opportunity of making. I could write a whole chapter on the expression of one poor girl's countenance, who came to buy a ribband for her bonnet. Her wishes were instantly fixed on a fine broad one, with a double stripe; but on hearing it was a shilling a yard, she heaved a sigh, counted her money, shook her head, and bought a narrow one at sixpence; but turned back once or twice as she left the shop, to look at the double stripe. I could write another long chapter on the sharp visage and eager eye of a little thin old lady, who had evidently come on foot to a cheap shop to buy bargains: for I saw, as soon as she entered, the people of the shop winked at each other; and when she asked the price of the before men tioned double striped ribband, she was told it was fifteenpence a yard. She then began bargaining, and battling, and declaring she could any where get a better ribband for half the money. The shop-woman also as steadily kept to her point, protesting it was prime cost, and she could not afford to sell it for less. At last, when both parties were out of breath, she measured the piece, and finding there were six yards, she said with the air of an excellent actress: "Well, Ma'am, rather than you should leave the shop dissatisfied, you shall have it quite a bargain, though I lose by it myself. If you will take the whole remnant, you shall have it for seven shillings.' A remnant, and a bargain, was too great a temptation for the old lady, who bought twice as much ribband as she wanted, and left the shop, exulting in her own dexterity in buying bargains; while the woman, smiling at her companions, pocketed the odd shilling as fair gains. I was going to make many wise reflections on this little incident, when a lady entered the shop, who baffled all the skill I thought I was possessed of in physiognomy. The gentility of her air was a contradiction to her dress, which, though faded and soiled, was still smart and flaunting; and the gaiety of her feathers and her rouge was not in unison with the haggard misery of her countenance. She looked too tawdry to be a respectable gentlewoman, and yet not bold and audacious enough to be quite what her appearance in other respects seemed to bespeak her. While she was paying for some triAling purchase, one of the shop-women said to the other, "Where are those gloves? Here is Mrs Mordant's carriage at the door ?” At hearing this name the lady started, and saying she was exceedingly faint, begged to sit down in the inner room, and without waiting for an answer darted in, and threw herself into a chair near the table where I lay. Her eyes were rivetted on a little girl of about six years old, who came holding by Mrs Mordant's hand into the shop, and her agitation at seeing her would have assured me she was the divorced wife of Mr Mordant, if her sobs and her exclamations, in a voice which was articulate only to myself, of" my darling, my own darling!" had not put it beyond a doubt. Mrs Mordant was purchasing some children's stockings, and, presenting some to the little girl, said, "Here, my dear Isabella, are some warm stockings for you to give to that poor child we have just seen.' 66 "O my dear, dear Mamma," exclaimed the little girl," springing into Mrs Mordant's arms," how kind, how good you are! you are always thinking of something to give me pleasure!" This seemed too much for the poor unhappy mother to bear; and the force of maternal love that she had stifled, when it might have saved her from destruction, now seemed to burst through every restraint: and, grasping me unconsciously in the end of her shawl, she started up with the evident intention of rushing to embrace her child; but as suddenly recollecting herself, she stood lingering at the door into the shop, till, the child having strayed away a little distance from Mrs Mordant, who was. busily engaged, the unhappy mother, unable any longer to resist the impulse of nature, caught hold of her. The child, alarmed at being seized by a stranger, struggled to disengage herself, and uttering a cry of terror, flew towards Mrs Mordant; and I felt the sudden revulsion of the mother's heart as she grasped me in her hand, and rushed into the street. Here Mrs Mordant's carriage, with the door open, and the step let down, was in readiness for its mistress; and from absence of reason, or perhaps a kind of recollection of its having been once her own, she was prevented from stepping into it, only by the servant's hastily putting up the step, and shutting the door. This brought her to her recollection, and she suddenly stopt, and looked at the footman, who seemed to be a respectable old family servant. I saw that they recognized each other. She leaned against the railing, and I thought would have fainted. Alas! could this poor thoughtless being have foreseen, before she plunged into the abyss of vice, that one of the penalties of her crime would be to stand abashed before her own servant, might it not have checked her in her mad career?- -When she was able to speak, she said, without looking up, O! We had a very melancholy journey in our rattling dirty vehicle, in which my poor companion threw herself back, insensible to every thing but her despair. "O! my father, my father! I have destroyed his happiness, and shall shorten his days. My sweet-my engaging child! Shall I never see her more? O! if I could but blot out all the five last years of my life!" were the incoherent expressions of her anguish, which it seemed to relieve her bursting heart to utter. At last we stopped at a forlorn looking house, in a little dull street leading out of Holborn. The miserable being dismissed the coach, and after staying a few minutes in the passage to dry her eyes, and recompose as well as she could her agitated countenance, went up stairs. Here was sitting in a small comfortless apartment a young man, whose sour irritated countenance and forlorn dress, were a picture both of inward and of external wretched ness. "How could you think of coming home in a hackney-coach, this fine day?" was the ungracious welcome he gave to his wife. "Indeed," said she, "I was too unwell to be able to walk home." "Stuff!" said he, 66 you were well enough in the morning; and what is to make you worse now? and how, pray, do you think I am to find money to support all your whims and extravagances? and where are the things I told you to get for me?" "I am very sorry," said the poor woman, sinking into a chair, but I quite forgot them." Here a fresh burst of anger and abuse burst from the gentleman,-gentleman shall I call him!-but, happily for his wife, spying me in the folds of her shawl, he stopped short in his invectives, and snatching me away, exclaimed, "To-day's paper, I see; how did you come by it?" "I cannot guess," said his wife, "I did not till this instant know I had it: surely I have not taken any thing else by mistake!"-shaking her shawl, and turning as pale as ashes, as if recollecting that, if she had, she had not character enough to vindicate her innocence. Her companion, who did not seem to care for any of her distresses, applied himself immediately to me, and I afforded both him and his wife a short respite from his ill humour ;a very short one, for with a tremendous oath, that made me absolutely start from his hands, he exclaimed, "I am the most unfortunate fellow in the world! I see there will be a general promotion on the King's death, and if I had not been obliged to sell my commission, I should now have got my majority! But nothing ever prospered with me!-Nothing ever turned out lucky for me.-I never had any friends,- -never could get on as other men do. But you, Madam, you have been my ruin: I have not known a day's happiness since the hour I first saw you. "I can say truly," said his wife, lifting up her eyes, in which I hoped there was more of repentance than of resentment, "I can say truly, we are more than quits: what should I have been but for you?" What would I have given at that moment for a voice to have told these guilty creatures, instead of recriminating on each other, to look honestly into their own hearts: for in their own hearts they would find their true seducers. 66 O," said I to myself, "if the thoughtless beauty I saw at breakfast this morning could witness the scene which is now before me, what a lesson would it be to her!" While I was engaged in these reflections, an untidy dirty girl brought in an uninviting repast, and seeing me on the floor, took me up, and brought me down stairs, into what I suppose was called a parlour, where her master and mistress were sitting. At the moment I was brought in they were at high words: the lady had the superiority over her husband in voice and fluency, but which had the better argument I could not discover; for the husband declared he would not stay to be stunned to death by her noise, but would go where he could have good company and good humour. Saying this, he took me and his hat, and marched off to a neighbouring ale-house. Imagine me, compassionate reader, in this new scene: imagine what I must have felt in a place where there were above thirty of the most horrible looking fellows you can suppose sitting round a table. On that table I was thrown, and one of them taking me up, said, 66 Why, what's here? the Morning Post, indeed! Let me tell you, my friends, there is not a more wicked aristocratical paper in all the world than that same Morning Post. The Pope's bull is a fool to it. Here, give us the Black Dwarf and the Republican! That's the only good stuff for honest men!" "That it is," said a little dirty cobler, who might have been the Black Dwarf himself: " for my part, next to kings and lords, I thinks magistrates the biggest rogues in the land. When I and Dr Watson gets into Parliament, we'll see and make a change among 'em: a poor man can hardly go about his business now, for their meddling." And he said true enough, for the chief business of the present company appeared to be the passing forged notes, and picking pockets; and I must say I was very thankful when I found myself tossed into a distant corner of the room. Here I lay a long time out of sight, (would I could also have been out of hearing!) till some of the party went off at midnight to go prowling among their usual haunts. Some lingered to a late hour in the morning. I was first spied, after it became broad day, by a little boy, who seized upon me as lawful plunder, and tore me up to make the tail of his kite. I cannot say that I entirely enjoyed this deliberate dissection at the time, but I was afterwards amply repaid for the temporary pain it caused me, when I VOL. VII. found myself once more in my native element, the air. Mounting into the sky, I thought no more of the earth and all its busy scenes, but giving a loose to delight, danced about to the great admiration of a crowd of children which was assembled in Moor fields to see me. At one time I went up so very high, that I could tell philosophers some things they little dream of, if I did not think it better for them to be still groping in the dark. At last stretching myself out as far as I could, the better to examine the crystallization of some hailstones which was going on in a neighbouring cloud, the string that fastened me to the kite gave way, and I found myself, without the least power to assist myself, utterly abandoned to the mercy of the wind. Where I went, and what I saw, I cannot explain, for I was hurled about with too much rapidity, and was too much frightened, to be able to attend to the objects around me. At length I found myself caught fast by something, and perceived I had got entangled in one of the top branches of a tree in St James's Park. Here any body that has the curiosity may see me, by climbing the thirteenth tree on the left hand side as he enters into the Park from Spring Gardens. All I have to request is, that no busy hands will attempt to disturb me; for I am now enjoying that rus in urbe which most men so much desire, and which they so seldom obtain; never, certainly, in the same perfection in which I enjoy it. I am free from all fear of molestation from living creatures, the very crows being scared away from my tree by seeing me in it. I look down from my high but peaceful station on the busy crowds below, and enjoy what with truth may be called a bird's eye view of this noble city. The glory of the heavens is also open to me, and I would not exchange my observatory for that of Greenwich. The morning breeze and the glow of the mid-day sun are equally agreeable to my sensations, and I dread nothing but a shower of rain. The only person who has bestowed any notice on me since I have been an inhabitant of the tree on which I am perched, is a young man who fre quently sits in an upper window of one of those houses that look into the Park, and whom, by the shape of his 3 H head, for I know something of cranioscopy, I judge to be of a kindred spirit with my own. He probably sees something congenial in my appear ance, and we find means, accordingly, of communicating with each other; and it is to him, gentle reader, that you are now indebted for this history of the Morning Post. HISTORICAL NOTICE ON THE VEHM, DLE AGES. * OUR attention was lately attracted, by the account given in the last (47th) Number of the Quarterly Review, to what is there called the Holy Vehm, or Bloody League; and as our reading has made us a little acquainted with this famous tribunal, we mean to lay before our readers the information-concerning it we possess. The description given of it in the work from which the passage of the review is quoted, is unsupported by authorities, and looks more like a piece of romance, than of real history. Nothing is, however, more certain, than that there existed in Germany, from the beginning of the thirteenth to the middle of the fifteenth century, a number of courts of justice known by the name of Vehm, or Frey-Gerichte, and that the members of these tribunals, united into a formidable league, made themselves, in the fourteenth century, terrible to all Germany. Their origin is involved in doubt and obscurity. The most general opinion is, that they are as old as the time of Charlemagne, and were derived from the itinerant justices or commissioners, (missis per tempora discurrentibus) which that sovereign dispatched yearly to administer justice through his Saxon dominions. In the conquered dukedom of Lower Saxony, including what is now called Westphalia, he had reserved to himself the right of punishing heresy, sacrilege, witchcraft, secret assassina tion, and some other offences, which he declared could not be compensated, like other crimes among the Saxons, by paying a sum of money. It is an historical fact, that he, or his deputy, the Duke of Saxony, sent certain persons yearly through this country to administer justice, and to redress any grievances the conquered people might have against the officers of Charlemagne. These judges were called Send, or Frey-grafen, and to assist them in the execution of their office, two or more of the most trust-worthy, and distinguished inhabitants of each district, were appointed to give information of crimes, to testify against criminals, and to assist in bringing them to justice. They were called Schöppen, or assessors, and to preserve them from revenge, they were never publicly known. The Vehm-gericht is not regularly mentioned in history under this name before the thirteenth century. The first on record was held in 1211, and then spoken of as a well known thing. And it is chiefly from some points of resemblance between it and these courts of Charlemagne, that it is supposed to be derived from them. For example, the Vehm, or Frey-grafen, were appointed, like the justices, by the Emperor, or some Prince to whom he had conceded the privilege. They administered justice in his name, and subsequent Emperors attributed the origin of these courts to Charlemagne. The Schöppen had in both the same name, were in the same manner unknown, and the crimes taken cognizance of by the Vehm were principally those which Charlemagne had reserved to himself the right of punishing. The reason assigned for the Vehm Gericht not being mentioned in history under this name before the thirteenth century, is, that it had always before formed part of the regular administration of justice, and was no more noticed than many of the other institutions of that early period. Then, however, Henry the Lion fell under the ban of the empire, and his territories were divided among several princes. Much confusion ensued, which augmented the remarkably conspicuous. During his power of the Vehm, and made it government, it passed, as a customary thing, unobserved, like the daily rising of the sun. Under his successors, however, its extraordinary power made |