Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

When the news of the disaster appeared in the evening papers, the panic, which had been gathering strength as the day progressed, culminated in fever-heat. Everybody was in the streets asking, with staring eyeballs, for the latest

news.

Gradually it became known that 75,000 of the enemy were advancing on the capital by way of Aldershot, and that the General in command at the camp, who had 1,371 men of all arms under him, all told, had received orders to oppose them, and this announcement seemed to restore in some measure the public confidence.

Meanwhile a quite phenomenal activity prevailed at the War Office, and the horses of the General Omnibus Company were at once requisitioned for the service of the Royal Artillery. The Duke of Cambridge, on hearing of the catastrophe, had applied to the Authorities instantly for the 11,000 men he had recently insisted on. With that force, he said, even at the eleventh hour, he would guarantee the safety of the country. Mr. Whitely forthwith urdertook to furnish them within twenty-four hours. His offer was accepted with enthusiasm. It was known too that Lord Wolseley had already started with a miscellaneous force of Volunteers, Guards, and Policemen, hurriedly collected, for Sydenham, with the intention of taking up a defensive position among the antideluvian animals, and there waiting the course of events.

The Authorities were fairly on their mettle. They instantly supplied three Volunteer regiments with rifles of an obsolete and antiquated pattern. Nor was this all. They telegraphed to Woolwich to expedite the selection of a model for the new magazine rifle, and marked their com munication "urgent." Matters, meanwhile, at headquarters were not less vigorously pushed forward. Inquiries were made for Mr. Stanhope's plan of "defending the Thames. Every pigeon-hole was examined, but it could not be found. Still, the Department did not despair. They despatched a third-class War Office clerk to Greenwich to report on the situation and say what he thought of it.

When, however, it transpired the next morning that, spite all the efforts to stay their advance, 50,000 of the enemy had taken possession of the Bank of England, seized the Lord Mayor and Aldermen as hostages, and were prepared to treat with the Government, with a view to evacuation, on the cession of Margate, Canada, India, Gibraltar, Malta, Australia, and Madame Tussaud's Wax-work Collection, together with a preliminary payment of fifteen milliards. Englishmen began soberly to recognise that what they had so long regarded as an impossible vision had really come about, and that the "Next Armada" was an unhappily accomplished fact.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

"BUT while these stirring events were passing in the East, the mind of England was turned into a very different channel. No faithful historian could pass over this period without touching upon a pastime which was now taking a remarkable hold upon the nation, and pervading with its influence the upper and middle classes of British society.

Rackets, and the old French game of Tennis, had long been popular with the English youth; but by those who had left the public schools and universities they were generally unattainable. It was left for Major Wingfield, the scion of

a Shropshire family, to bring home, I may almost say to every door, a game which, little inferior to the classic games which I have just mentioned, was open, without the paraphernalia of a costly court, to every one at least who possessed a moderate-sized and level lawn. Lawn-Tennis was now rapidly elbowing out Archery, a thoroughly English and deep-rooted institution, and Croquet, its younger sister. Cricket was losing many of its most earnest devotees. In some parts of England there was an almost daily rendezvous at one or other of the great houses of the neighbourhood for the new and popular pastime. In country circles, tournaments were rousing the keenest excitement. Society was being differentiated into the good players and the bad. Crowds flocked annually to Wimbledon to watch the great match for the Championship of the world, to which a silver goblet had been added by The Country Gentleman's Newspaper. Masters of hounds deferred cub-hunting that the Lawn Tennis season might be still further prolonged. A game of Lawn-Tennis was not unfrequently the innocent finish of the Ruridecanal meetings of the clergy. "Will he make a fourth?" was the first question to be asked about the new curate in many a country parish. All-popular among the public schools was Harrow-on-the-Hill, which had now furnished the Lawn-Tennis Champion for four consecutive years. Politics were laid aside in the public press while the rules of the game were discussed. On one side were ranged the netvolleyers : on the other those who thought that netvolleying spoilt all the beauty and elegance of the game. Never, by this latter party, since the time of Guy Fawkes, had man been so intensely hated as he who, standing close to the net with uplifted racket, stifled stroke after stroke as they came to meet him. We shall not enter very fully into the merits of this controversy; to do so would be dull, and possibly, to future generations, unintelligible. It is sufficient to say that while the skilled players defied "the man at the net" to do his worst, another and a larger party, looking, be it supposed, to the greatest happiness of the greatest number, was clamouring for such Lawn-Tennis legislation as would degrade the game to the capabilities of mediocrity, and drive the odious net player from the courts. So numerous were the grades of dexterity that a leader in the Tennis world, and an author of some repute, had formulated a handicap table by which players of as many degrees as the letters of the alphabet might be brought together on even terms; while Henry Jones, the "Cavendish" of the whist-table, and other mathematicians, had worked out to several places of decimals the advantages of service. Such was the state of things which was distracting the mind of England while the fleets of Europe patrolled the Mediterranean, and peace and war were trembling in the balance."

From Tennis Cuts and Quips. Edited by Julian Marshall. London, Field and Tuer.

There are numerous other imitations of Lord Macaulay's prose writings. One, written by the late Dean Hook, is to be found in his "Life and Letters" by W. R. W. Stephens (vol ii., p. 476), it relates only to ecclesiastical affairs.

Another, entitled The Story of Johnnie Armstrong, the Scotch outlaw, appeared in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, September 22, 1888. It was a prize composition of considerable merit, written by Mr. J. T. Milne, but it is unfortunately too long to be here inserted.

1

MRS. BROWN AT CAMBRIdge.

By Arthur Sketchey.

OF all the railroads as I ever came across that Great'rn is out and out the worst, thro' bein' that tejus slow and the carridges a mask of dirt as you might grow cabbidges on, as the sayin' is, and took all the freshness out of my light blue pollynaise, as I'd thought the kerrect thing at Cambridge, thro' Mrs. Burgess a-wearin' the same at the Boatrace, and some young Cambridge gents a-sayin' "Mum, you've 'it the right colour this time and no mistake,' pleased 'er no end, tho' all the time larfin' at 'er, I've no doubt, thro' bein' a orkard figger from a child and not one to look well in a Joseph's coat of many colours, as the sayin' is.

[ocr errors]

as

'Ow ever I met Mrs. Vagg on that everlastin' endless platform I don't know, but I says to 'er, "a pint of four ale I must 'ave," as I saw a refreshmint bar 'andy, but of all the stuck-up trollopin' things that barmaid was the most orful, as 'ad dressed 'er 'air within a hinch of 'er life, as the sayin' is, in four false plaits, and three young men a-hoglin' of 'er across the slab, as might 'ave known better, and took cheek from that gal, as I'd 'ave paid 'er back, and let 'er know 'er place.

I never wish to swaller a better cup of tea than Mrs. Vagg gave me that evenin' thro' 'er bein' a Bed-maker and in course tea a perkisite, and is only fair with 'er maid-of-allwork to seven gentlemen and board and lodge 'erself, not but what 'er house wasn't very nice, as bein' in Regint Street with Wictor Emmanivel's Collidge opposight. for all the world like Clerkenwell jail, with bars to the winders and all, mayhap thro' fear of burglars a-breakin' in, and acarryin' off the Uniwersity chest, as I'm told would only be poor pickins, and not worth the trouble.

Whether it was that cup of tea, or whether it was talkin' over old times with Mrs. Vagg, as 'ad been in service with me as a gal, but nine o'clock struck and took me all of a 'eap, thro' 'avin' promised Brown as I'd send 'im a 'a-penny card just to say I was all right. So I says "What time do the Post go out?" "Ten o'clock, says she, but you're never goin' out there to-night, and a Town and Gown row on too, as is what no decent woman would face."

[ocr errors]

"Beggin' your parding, mum," says I, "their aint no Town nor Gown neither as shall stand in the way of my duty to my lawful 'usband."

So seein' I was in earnest, she 'eld 'er tongue, and 'elped me on with my shawl, and says "Turn to the left and foller your nose, and that'll bring you straight to the Post Office."

Well up the hairy steps I went, thro' 'er a-occypying the ground floor, and a-lettin' the first, and the very first thing as I sees were a roamin' candle goin' off on Parky Peace as they call it, tho' a poorish Park to me as knows Grinnidge, and as for Peace, it's a-callin' peace where there's no peace, thro' bein' a mask of folk all a-'ustling and a-jeerin', and alettin' off fireworks, as is things I don't 'old with, thro' John Biggen as was my first cousin on the mother's side bein' blinded with a rocket at Vaux 'all, as were a piece of luck for Mrs. Biggin, as no one would 'ave married with 'is eyes open thro' 'er face bein' a puffect cullender from the smallpox.

What the rumpus was all about I don't know, but the streets was full of young men as would 'ave been better in their beds, some on 'em a-walkin' two and two and a-smokin' pipes, and some jinin' arms, and marchin' up the streets singin' for all the world like as if they was tipsy, and the pavemint that narrer as I was shoved off the kerb, and into a gutter, as was a foot deep and wetted me up to my knees, and clean spilte a new petticut, as such things should'nt be allowed in the public streets,-and where's their Board of 'Ealth?

There was two young fellers a-walkin' be'ind me, and says one, a-larfin', and a-pintin', "That's a good make up,' meanin' me, as turned round sharp on 'im, and told 'im ot mind 'is own business and not talk about makin' up to me as were old enough to be 'is mother, let alone 'avin' twice 'is wits, as were not much better than a fool, and looked only three days in the week, as the sayin' is. But law bless you, my lord only larfed, and just then I saw a great rampagious mob a-tearin' up the street as looked the scum of the earth, and gave me that turn as I thought swound away I must, and ketched 'old of 'is arm, and says, "'Elp a lady in distress, and conduc me past them willains. "

Says he, a-takin' off 'is 'at quite perlite, "With pleasure, mum," and off he walked with me a-'angin' on to 'is arm, and my 'eart a-thumpin' with pannikin' fear as might 'ave been 'eard 'arf a mile away.

Well I was just a-slippin' my 'a-penny card into the Post, when up comes an elderly gent a-stridin' along and a-lookin' very big, with a gownd a-trailin' in the mud, and the banns of marridge round 'is neck for all the world like a parson, as no doubt was, and says to the young gent, "Which I must trouble you for six and eightpence for not a-wearin' of your hacademic dress," and pulls out a sort of bettin'-book for to enter 'is name and Collidge.

Says the young gent, quite cool and brazen-like, "Excuse me, sir, but I was a-escortin' of my mother 'ome, and didn't put on my gownd for fear of the cads."

You

This put my blood up, as never could abear anything deceitful or under'and, and I lets go of 'im, and says, hartful young 'ypocrate, and me never 'avin' set my eyes on you before this evenin', as must 'ave took 'im aback like and serve 'im right, but he didn't wait for no more, but ran off like a harrer from a bow, as the sayin' is, and the old chap sets a long legged feller to run after 'im, as I 'ope didn't ketch 'im, thro' bein' a kind-'earted young man spite of 'is owdacious fibbin'."

By this time there was a reglar Punch and Judy crowd round us, but I grabbed tight on to my umbreller, and thinks I "it me any of you who dare," when the elderly gent says, "If so be as you're a decent woman, you'll go 'ome."

Says I, "who says as Martha Brown aint a decent woman, you old waggerbone! I aint a goin' to stand 'ere to be hinsulted," and was bouncin' off feelin' quite 'urt like, and the crowd a cheerin' and a sayin', "Go it, old Fatchops,' when if that old fool didn't take and say as it were 'is duty to see me 'ome.

"Says I, "Thank you for nothin', as would prefer you did no such thing, thro' me not bein known 'ere and people might make remarks," but, law bless you, words wasn't no good with 'im, as walked along side of me all the way with the crowd a-follerin' and a-hollerin' and a-pokin' their fun at im' and me.

Right glad I was to stand on Mrs. Vagg's door-step, and fainted clean away as soon as hever I got down to the kitchen, and you don't ketch me a-goin' down that street after dark again, and, tho' boys will be boys, yet I don't 'old with all their squibbin' and fibbin, nor yet with helderly gents as is paid to hinsult respectable fieldmales, as I wish my 'usband 'ad been there, as would 'ave broke hevery bone in 'is skin and serve 'im right.

From The Light Green. Cambridge, W. Metcalfe and Sons, 1873.

[graphic]

238

BENJAMIN DISRAELI,

Lord Beaconsfield.

It must be confessed that the burlesques of the novels of Disraeli are not, as a rule, very amusing, but there is one brilliant exception, namely, that written by Bret Harte.

It is entitled "Lothaw, or the Adventures of a Young Gentleman in Search of a Religion," by Mr. Benjamins. This was first printed in England by the late Mr. J. C. Hotten in 1871. It consists of nine short chapters.

LOTHAW.
Chapter I.

"I REMEMBER him a little boy," said the Duchess. "His mother was a dear friend of mine: you know, she was one of my bridesmaids."

"And you have never seen him since, mamma?" asked the oldest married daughter, who did not look a day older than her mother.

"

Never; he was an orphan shortly after. I have often reproached myself, but it is so difficult to see boys."

This simple yet first-class conversation existed in the morning-room of Plusham, where the mistress of the palatial mansion sat involved in the sacred privacy of a circle of her married daughters.

One dexterously applied golden knitting-needles to the fabrication of a purse of floss silk of the rarest texture, which none who knew the almost fabulous wealth of the Duke would believe was ever destined to hold in its silken meshes a less sum than £1,000,000 sterling; another adorned a slipper exclusively with seed pearls; a third emblazoned a page with rare pigments and the finest quality of gold-leaf.

Beautiful forms leaned over frames glowing with embroidery, and beautiful frames leaned over forms inlaid with mother-of-pearl.

Others, more remote, occasionally burst into melody as they tried the passages of a new and exclusive air given to them in MS. by some titled and devoted friend, for the private use of the aristocracy alone, and absolutely prohibited for publication.

The Duchess, herself the superlative of beauty, wealth, and position, was married to the highest noble in the Three Kingdoms.

Those who talked about such matters said that their progeny were exactly like their parents-a peculiarity of the aristocratic and wealthy.

They all looked like brothers and sisters, except their parents, who, such was their purity of blood, the perfection of their manners, and the opulence of their condition, might have been taken for their own children's elder son and daughter.

The daughters, with one exception, were all married to the highest nobles in the land.

That exception was the Lady Coriander, who-there being no vacancy above a marquis and a rental of £1,000,000-waited.

Gathered around the refined and sacred circle of their breakfast-table, with their glittering coronets, which, in filial respect to their father's Tory instinct and their mother's Ritualistic tastes, they always wore on their regal brows, the effect was dazzling as it was refined.

It was this peculiarity and their strong family resemblance which led their brother-in-law, the good-humoured St. Addlegourd, to say that, "Pon my soul, you know,

the whole precious mob looked like a ghastly pack of court cards-don't you know?"

St. Addlegourd was a radical.

[ocr errors]

Having a rent-roll of £15,000,000, and belonging to one of the oldest families in Britain, he could afford to be. "Mamma, I've just dropped a pearl," said the Lady Coriander, bending over the Persian hearth-rug. ," said Lothaw, who From your lips, sweet friend,' came of age and entered the room at the same moment. "No, from my work. It was a very valuable pearl, mamma; papa gave Isaacs and Sons £50,000 for the two."

“Ah, indeed,” said the Duchess, languidly rising ; "let us go to luncheon."

"But your Grace," interposed Lothaw, who was still quite young, and had dropped on all-fours on the carpet "consider the valuein search of the missing gem, "Dear friend," interposed the Duchess, with infinite tact, gently lifting him by the tails of his dress-coat, "I am waiting for your arm.

[ocr errors]

Chapter II.

Lothaw was immensely rich.

The possessor of seventeen castles, fifteen villas, nine shooting-boxes, and seven town houses, he had other estates of which he had not even heard.

Everybody at Plusham played croquet, and none badly. Next to their purity of blood and great wealth, the family were famous for this accomplishment.

Yet Lothaw soon tired of the game, and after seriously damaging his aristocratically large foot in an attempt to "tight croquet" the Lady Aniseed's ball, he limped away to join the Duchess.

"I'm going to the hennery," she said.
"Let me go with you.

*

[ocr errors]

I dearly love fowls

broiled," he added, thoughtfully.

"The Duke gave Lady Montairy some large Cochins the other day," continued the Duchess, changing the subject with delicate tact.

"Lady Montairy,
Quite contrairy,
How do your cochins grow?"

sang Lothaw gaily.

After a prolonged silence,
The Duchess looked shocked.
Lothaw abruptly and gravely said-

"If you please, ma'am, when I come into my property I should like to build some improved dwellings for the poor, and marry Lady Coriander."

"You amaze me, dear friend, and yet both your aspirations are noble and eminently proper," said the Duchess; "Coriander is but a child-and yet," she added, looking "for the matter of that, so graciously upon her companion, are you.

[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

THE noise in the old town was terrific; Great Tom was booming sullenly over the uproar; the bell of Saint Mary's was clanging with alarm; St. Giles's tocsin chimed furiously; howls, curses, flights of brickbats, stones shivering windows, groans of wounded men, cries of frightened females, cheers of either contending party as it charged the enemy from Carfax to Trumpington Street, proclaimed that the battle was at its height.

In Berlin they would have said it was a revolution, and the cuirassiers would have been charging, sabre in hand, amidst that infuriate mob. In France they would have brought down artillery, and played on it with twentyfour-pounders. In Cambridge nobody heeded the disturbance-it was a Town and Gown row.

The row arose at a boat-race. The Town boat (manned by eight stout bargees, with the redoubted Rullock for stroke) had bumped the Brazennose light oar, usually at the head of the river. High words arose regarding the dispute. After returning from Granchester, when the boats pulled back to Christchurch meadows, the disturbance between the Townsmen and the University youths their invariable opponents-grew louder and more violent, until it broke out in open battle. Sparring and skirmishing took place along the pleasant fields that lead from the University gate down to the broad and shining waters of the Cam, and under the walls of Baliol and Sidney Sussex. The Duke of Bellamont (then a dashing young sizar at Exeter) had a couple of rounds with Billy Butt, the bow oar of the Bargee boat. Vavasour of Brazennose was engaged with a powerful butcher, a well-known champion of the Town party, when, the great University bells ringing to dinner, truce was called between the combatants, and they retired to their several colleges for refection.

During the boat-race, a gentleman pulling in a canoe,

and smoking a Nargilly, had attracted no ordinary attention. He rowed about a hundred yards ahead of the hoats in the race, so that he could have a good view of that curious pastime. If the eight-oars neared him, with a few rapid strokes of his flashing paddles his boat shot a furlong ahead; then he would wait, surveying the race, and sending up volumes of odour from his cool Nargilly.

"Who is he?" asked the crowds who panted along the shore, encouraging, according to Cambridge wont, the efforts of the oarsmen in the race. Town and Gown. alike asked who it was, who, with an ease so provoking, in a barque so singular, with a form seemingly so slight, but a skill so prodigious, beat their best men. No answer could be given to the query, save that a gentleman in a dark travelling-chariot, preceded by six fourgons and a courier, had arrived the day before at the Hoop Inn, opposite Brazennose, and that the stranger of the canoe seemed to be the individual in question.

No wonder the boat, that all admired so, could com. pete with any that ever was wrought by Cambridge artificer or Putney workmen. That boat-slim, shining, and shooting through the water like a pike after a small fish-was a caique from Tophana; it had distanced the Sultan's oarsmen, and the best crews of the Capitan Pasha in the Bosphorus; it was the workmanship of Togrul Beg, Caikjee Bashee of his Highness. The Bashee had refused fifty thousand tomauns from Count Boutenieff, the Russian Ambassador, for that little marvel. When his head was taken off, the Father of Believers presented the boat to Rafael Mendoza.

[blocks in formation]

NIHILISM IN RUSSIA.

(In imitation of Disraeli's Sybil.)

FOR there opposed each other but two elements in this society at once strange and simple. Around the throne of the Great Peter, and in the marble city which is his monument, the gay circles of the Aristocracy frittered away a frivolous existence amid the blaze of diamonds, the strains of music, and all those Circean enchantments that dull the energy and bid care repose. Here was wealth to make life easy, and here luxury to give it splendour; here was beauty to stir the pulse of youth, and here wit to waken even the most thoughtless to a sense that for them too there were pleasures of the intellect. So lived the lords of those vast plains, whose immensity made aptly significant the proud title of "All the Russias." And the tiller of those plains, what of him? Surrounded by the sad and sombre Steppe, that breathed its melancholy over him from the cradle, broken by toil and of untutored mind, his life was suffering without interval of enjoyment, degradation without hope of change. Too brutish for the aspirations of Religion, he was well-nigh bereft of that supreme solace wherewith the ingenuity of the sophistical rhetorician may seek to sooth even the aged pauper of St. Pancras. And yet Revolution was as impossible for him as content. For Revolution is the explosion of an Idea, that overturns Society in its struggle to the light. To the Scythian serf was altogether wanting the initial force of the fulminating Idea. Steeped in ignorance, he was also isolated. Through his dreary continent had never permeated the Secret Societies of other lands, and for him there was no magic potency in the mysterious name of " Mary-Anne." So hethought not of overturning Society, but of effacing it. For the first time in man's history was seen that portentous birth, an Apostle of Nothing. In a word, he was a Nihilist!

Vainly was it attempted to divert his purposes by the lure of foreign conquest and a fresh Crusade; in vain was dangled before him by the astute Ministers of Muscovy the long-sought guerdon of his efforts-the sacred city of the Sultans. One was on the watch who came of a race not lightly to be beguiled, a race that was ancient thirty centuries before these Scythian hordes had claimed to be a nation. The Great Minister of the West, strong with the might and majesty of England, saw that it was reserved for him to crown that Royal Mistress, on whose brow he had recently set a new and Imperial coronet, with the fresh garland of a bloodless triumph. In the lofty language of the sacred records of his people, 'Let there be Peace!' he said; and that which he achieved became known to the world in his own historic phrase of "Peace with Honour !"

BROUGHSHANE.

This imitation won the first prize in a parody competition, in The World, September 17, 1879:

.:0:

DE TANKARD.

By Benjamin Dizzyreally, Esq., M.P.

Chapter XL.

WHAT majority had they last night, my lord?" asked a fair young man in the Carlton, from a stately personage who was sitting at a table near him, occupied with a bottle of Lafitte.

Fifty-two," was the reply.

"How did Peel look when he heard it ?"

"Oh, he smiled in his usual quiet triumphant way," said Lord Mannerley.

"Ah! while Peel is sultan there will be no want of ruined villages for our political owls to make their nests in," remarked the youth.

"Yes, these cursed free-traders flourish on the ruins of the agriculturalists," said Lord Mannerly savagely.

66

And they will be soon howling like jackals in the ruins of the constitution," added his young companion, with a sigh.

"This Lafitte is capital," said the ruined landowner.

At this moment a young man approached the table. His bearing was proud, his eyes dark and luminous, his figure stately as a palm-tree. His aquiline nose betrayed his superb organisation. You saw at once that he was of the purest Caucasian race. Yes! his lineage sprung from the families who peopled the noble mountain which received the Divine Ark, and cherished the snowy dove that spread its white wings over the waters, that had swallowed up the inhabitants of a world! As he passed up the noble room, how insignificant in his presence appeared the children of the semi-civilized barbarians, spawned in a northern swamp!

[ocr errors]

May I offer you a glass of claret, De Tankard?" asked Lord Mannerley.

"Thank you, I only drink sherbet, just now," replied the youth.

"You can get some Persian sherbet at a penny a glass," said a witty Milesian lord.

De Tankard smiled compassionately on the aristocratic buffoon. ""Tis doubtless worthy of your English civilization," was his calm scornful reply.

Chapter XLIV.

De Tankard stood at the window of a small country inn, and watched the storm raging in the forest. Lithely bent the straight poplar with a low wail beneath the breath of the north wind. The oak roared, the beech howled, and the wild leaves, caught in the eddies of the winds, were wreathed by them into chaplets, as though the Spirit of the Storm wished to crown with them the noble gazer on his work.

"'Tis a great spectacle," remarked De Tankard, to a man who stood beside him, of an air-oh, how grand! Benonia (for it was indeed he !) sneered. Have you ever seen a Mediterranean white squall, or a whirlwind in the Desert?' he asked.

"Alas, no!" was the reply. "I must soon visit the glorious East, the parent of religion, civilization, science, and art," and the dark eyes of De Tankard glowed with Eastern fire.

"Ah, you are young," exclaimed Benonia, with enthusiasm. "Glorious youth! By youth have all great deeds been accomplished. Ransack the history of ages. The fact is stamped on every line. The Trojan, Paris, was but a youth when he ran away with the fair Grecian, and got his native town destroyed for it ten years after! Cæsar was in the freshness of life when he destroyed the Republic and founded a despotism. Nero developed his villany early, and Heliogabalus was a confirmed glutton before his minority was over! Nay, to come to our own country, what was the age of the Boy Jones when he passed the sacred precincts of a Royal palace, and stood where none but Royal feet had ever trod before?-Barely sixteen! Look at Lord William Lennox-how young he was when he wrote his great works!"

Benonia paused. De Tankard dropped a warm and "I will start to the East to-morrow!" sparkling tear.

he exclaimed.

"You had better have a couple of millions," said Benonia. "I have got about half-a-dozen in my pocket to carry me over the night."

Chapter XLVIII.

Silence reigns beneath the brilliant azure of an Oriental sky;-silence, broken only by the silver tinkling of the camel's bell. A noble creature is the camel. Compared with that Caucasian of beasts, the shapeless quadruped of the Northern, is but an ass!

Ever and anon, through the moist perfumed twilight, steals a delicious breeze. Delicious, but melancholy. For in that breeze floats a prophet's sigh. The cypress moans as it passes; and the palm-tree bows its proud head in honour to it, as it flies along! On the holy barrenness of the saintly brow of Lebanon, the moon's rays fall reverently, and Lebanon looks holier under their light.

In the court in front of the counting-house of an Emir, sits De Tankard. From among the round pebbles of the pavement, springs a fresh fountain. On the branches of the trees gleam ripe oranges.

The young man looked sad and solemn. He had that morning seen an angel, as usual! By his side was a Lovely female, and near him the lively young Emir Baboo smoked his nargilly.

[ocr errors]

'Do you often see angels, De Tankard?" he asked, laughing.

[ocr errors]

Peace!" was the reply.

"I have a combination!" cried out the Emir, jumping up with a violence which smashed the nargilly. "Let us

« AnteriorContinuar »