your own honour and the happiness of both, and then, the now chiding and heart-broken guardian will fly to your feet, and there confess himself your happy lover, and future all-devoted, all-indulgent husband!"

"Till I receive your answer, I count the hours by the pulsations of my heart, which throbs only to misery. Your anxious lover,

"Saracen's Head, London."

66 REUBEN RUBASORE.' 99

Now, I think this was tolerably well for a gentleman of fifty. For passionate nonsense, I don't think I could have beaten it myself at twenty-five, though I might at twenty. However, he was not ashamed to seal it with due gravity, and despatched it, by that night's post, to Jasper Hall.

Though I am but little successful in recounting a love story, yet, having thus far entered into the affair, and by giving Mr. Rubasore's letter, put Miss Belmont, in some manner, upon her trial, it is but fair that we give part of her reply. It ran thus:

"Dear Reuben," which was scratched over with her pen-" My dear sir," served in the same manner, and then there remained thus:

"HONOURED GUARDIAN,

"The indivisibility of thought has puzzled, from the earliest ages, all the penetration of metaphysicians; its indestructibility has also caused much doubt among the learned; but whether passion be born of thought, or only consistent with it-or have nothing to do with it whatever, to which last opinion I much incline, is a matter still to be debated in my mind. In that learned work on the Rosicrucian Mysteries, which you recommended to me so strongly, I find it distinctly laid down as a principle, that man, I use the generic term, is divided by nature into four ages, and in each age he has a different individuality. This is corroborated by Jean Jacques Rousseau. What Diderot and Voltaire have said upon the subject we will come to by-and-by.

"Now, it is manifest, by these and other excellent au

thorities, that youth is not answerable for the acts of its childhood, maturity for the acts of its youth, nor senility for the acts of its maturity, seeing that, in these different stages, the identity of the individual has changed.

"Now, honoured guardian, you will observe how logical I am; though one stage is not answerable for the acts of the other, each succeeding stage ought to correct the errors of the preceding one. For does not Hobbes lay down the maxin, that man is an improving animal? Now for the deduction. As a child, and in my childhood, you caused me to fancy that I fell in love with you, because you told me that you had fallen in love with me. Very well; and then because you told me that those who love each other must do all that each other asked, you made me swear, (I believe you are right when you say it was by the moon,) that I would marry you when I had become of age, and until that time, would keep it a secret. Now, honoured guardian, according to our principles, there was nothing wrong in all this; indeed, in the Romances, and other French writers, which you have. wished me to read, I find many similar instances; but, as lately, I suddenly passed from my childhood into my youthhood, or juvenility, I acknowledge no longer the acts of the individual that constituted my childhood, but must make my youth do all it can to repair that very foolish error of mine, of fancying that I was ever in love with a person old enough, almost, to be my grandfather, and also must hold myself no longer responsible for any engagement that my identity as a child might have entered into.

"This is logic. I will give you French quotations for it, by-and-by. But, to pursue my subject. The individual that occupied my identity as a child, had no aversion to longitudinal faces, iron-gray hair, and switch pigtails, especially the latter; for that individual was fond of pulling it about, and hanging thereunto dolls, bandelors, and other playthings, all similar amusements to which, my juvenility abhors. Perhaps, if we both live so long, in my senility the taste for such occupations may return; and then, if we should happen both to be single, I may, or to speak more philosophically, the individual occupying my identity may, be induced again to renew the matrimonial engagement-but understand me perfectly-NEVER TILL THEN!

"You see, honoured guardian, the pains I have taken to work out the principles that you were so anxious to instil-through the course of French reading, that you recommended to me in the convent-into my youthful bosom.

"I am now going to advert to the indivisibility and indestructibility of thought as bearing upon this argument; and shall, as I suppose that you have not Voltaire by you, quote some pages from his eighth volume

What these pages were it is impossible to say, as the above is the only part of this able and argumentative epistle that exists; for, when Mr. Rubasore had read it thus far, or perhaps to the end, he tore it angrily in halves, and flung it among the ashes.

Thus preserved by one of those curious accidents that sometimes occur, it is to be hoped that this fragment which was not consumed may go down to posterity, with this singularly veracious account of the old Commodore, as a sample of Miss Rosa's powers of composition.

As this communication convinced Mr. Rubasore, that the arts of imploring would be entirely useless, instead of cajolery he determined to employ coercion. That he might do so most effectually, and, at the same time, quite legally, he repaired forthwith to his friend Mr. Sharpus; and, as he could not be in worse company, we will there very gladly leave him.

CHAPTER V.

"With words of mystery, the good old man

Screen'd his friend's fault, reproving whilst he screen'd."

OLD PLAY.

GREAT is the pity that an historian cannot conduct three or four operations simultaneously, and give his reader the trifling privilege of ubiquity. I boast not. I am but a worn-out, aged mariner. I have not art in writing. I have no other means of bringing my incidents forward in a level line, than those which the cat employs in conveying her young brood from one place to another. As she takes them up in her mouth, one by one, and drops each before she goes back for another, so do I treat my charac

ters.

On bringing thus forward the love affairs of his nephew, we have left the grim old Commodore a long way behind. Rather a tough mouthful, considering the state of my gums, (teeth are matters of history with me,) for me to carry with my mouth metaphorical, and place abreast in the line of time with Captain Oliphant. But as men more foolish than myself have performed exploits much greater, I shall even attempt it. Should I founder, or only flounder, by the way, let it be remembered, that I apologized in anticipation.

Sir Octavius Bacuissart repaired with all haste to Plymouth. Arrived there, he waited on the admiral, received his appointment and instructions, and then immediately went on board the Thunderbolt, and hoisted his broad pennant. At the bare rumour of this appointment, the Thunderbolts were struck all of a heap. The officers were most anxious to get leave to change, and the seamen to exchange without leave. Of the mids, it might be truly said, (only it was not strictly true,) that they put on sackcloth, and covered their heads with ashes; however, they grew dolorous over their grog, and began to calculate the exact degree of pain that the cat-o'-nine-tails usually inflicted upon remarkably young and tender skins. There was a little-a very little-talk about jumping overboard.

This Thunderbolt was the finest two-decker then in the navy. She was rated as an eighty-gun ship, but carried many more than eighty pieces of ordnance. Hitherto, every one who belonged to her, took so much pride in all that concerned her that they thought to be a Thunderbolt added to the individual dignity of each. This consideration made men and officers resolve to give the old Commodore a short trial: and they were the more confirmed in this, from seeing a great many of the Terrifics -the very Terrifics that the old Commodore had prevented from joining the mutiny by flogging so much, volunteer to serve again under their old commander.

Sir Octavius had paid his first visit, introduced himself to all his officers, grinned good-humouredly at the crew, and inspected the noble ship thoroughly; he returned to the hotel on shore, leaving the Thunderbolts ample food for speculation. They saw, at once, that the old Commodore was not a man to be trifled with; but, upon the whole, the impression that he made upon them was rather favourable.

In the course of a few days, Mr. Underdown, the patient man, joined his friend, Sir Octavius, and reported that Mrs. Oliphant, and one of her daughters, apparently a very accomplished young lady, were happily domesticated at Trestletree Hall, and that Miss Rebecca had most solemnly promised to discard her stable-acquaintance, receive her various masters into favour, and reform her manners altogether.

All this was most gratifying to her father. The intelligence also of the arrival of Mr. Underdown had spread,