WHAT MANY PEOPLE DO, BUT NOBODY OWNS TO.

BY ELIZA COOK.

SOME one has written, "Ingratitude is a crime so shameful, that the man was never yet found who would confess himself guilty of it." Very true,

doubtless, and we could cite many instances in our own limited experience, as every one else might, in evidence of the assertion. But there is another crime of less moral importance, certainly, but equally general commission, of which the same might have been said with equal truth. Gentle reader, did you ever know the upright being who would confess to the sin of snoring? If you have, you have encountered such a rare organization of candour and selfhumiliation, that we should recommend it to be instantly taken up by Barnum, the Great American Showman. Have you a venerable uncle, who, after his bottle, takes a "snooze," wherein his elysian dreams exhibit powerful nasal eruptions? Have you a dear old grandmother who sits in her arm-chair, "between the lights," affording no outward sign of life but in very uncertain guttural vagaries of the olfactory department? Have you an elderly friend who, wearied with bills and barterings, allows his chin to repose supinely on his satin stock, until he is aroused by his own semibreve notes of "sleeping measure?" And have you ever dared to insinuate to these worthies in their waking moments, the plain, unvarnished misdemeanour, that they have been perpetrating? and if you have, pray have you not invariably found a resolute and indignant denial of the imputed guilt? It is a strange psychological fact, that not one of us ever will own to snoring. Is it that we are so acutely aware of the unseemly fashion of face which is ever assumed under the somnific act and deed? We must admit that beauty is not in the ascendant when open mouth and dropping chin form our most ostensible features, frequently displaying our incisors, whether they do justice to Rowland's dentifrice, or not. Fascination is out of the question while we are observed under the ridiculous inanity of countenance that attends poppy-juice inebriation; and all the loves and graces owned by Venus and Adonis, are utterly annihilated by the visionary occupation of "driving pigs to market."

[PRICE 14d.

Happy are those who are so constituted that they can sleep with closed lips and silent nostrils; who can preserve the curved line of Grecian chiselling, and keep the Roman nose under due subjection. What an unmeasured number of anathemas they escape from nervous dwellers in contiguous apartments: what impertinent jests they are spared: what degrading personalities they are free from. Nay, we even doubt whether Homer, who was given to "nod," ever claimed the same degree of veneration and esteem from those who caught him in the fact, as he gained from those who only recognised his "song," unaccompanied by the shadow of his "snore." Unquestionably there is something very undignified in the state of snoring, and personal conceit would be reduced considerably in many, if we could see ourselves in it. It was but the other day that we heard a fast young gentleman, of four years date, say to his paternal director, who had just started into life under the alarum of his own strong trumpet-note,

"La, Pa! how dreadful ugly you look when you make that noise;" and as "Pa" prided himself on his "artistic" style of face,-and this filial speech was uttered before three ladies,--it is not to be wondered at that the delinquent was ordered upstairs immediately. We ourselves, within the last week, made a most well-intentioned remark to a respected friend, touching the loudness of his after-dinner snoring; when, amiable as he generally is, he jumped at once into a testy, snappish mood, and not only flatly denied having indulged in a forty-pig-power of snoring just then, but asserted with mendacious pertinacity that he had "never snored in his life." Merciful powers!-when we have heard him scores of times through a nine-inch party wall, and wished him in any neighbourhood but our own. We might have accused him of breaking the whole of the Ten Commandments, and he would have stood the arraignment with magnanimity, but he could not bear the imputation of "snoring." We have a young lady acquaintance who actually quarrelled with us through our ingenuous veracity on the same subject. Let us, however, plead guilty to having made the "soft impeachment" in the presence of her "intended," an elegant youth, who patronized nothing more earthly than chicken, burgundy, and white kid gloves, but then we had been goaded into it by the sleepless nights she had inflicted on us, despite all our

entreating ejaculations of "Pray Emma, don't snore so ;" and sundry forcible expostulations in the shape of pushing and shaking. We have heard since that the match has been broken off, and we earnestly trust that our unfortunate exposition had nothing to do with the rupture.

Somehow, we have always entertained a most unrelenting antipathy to the sound of "snoring," and wage war with every modulation of it,-from the full and brazen trumpet-peal, to the incipient asthmatic murmuring. There is something so totally unmusical, so esssentially unromantic in the thing. We can put up with "the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind," and heroically endure a baby labouring under a pin carelessly applied, but we acknowledge that snoring tries us severely. We can tolerate a squint, and even admire some people's one-sided views; we can forgive an unsymmetrical mouth, and frequently get up a positive affection for a snub nose; but the handsomest man of our acquaintance has ruined himself for ever in our esteem, by permitting us to see him when snoring. Oh, that utter idiotic stupidity that total extinction of life's beacon-light which marked his countenance ! Never shall we forget it!-and with Punch in his hand, too. Only fancy a man being otherwise than "wide-a-wake' over Punch! Surely we ought to be ashamed of having such an acquaintance, you will say! Well, perhaps we are, at least, we can say this much, that on seeing him twenty yards off on Ludgate Hill the other day, the remembrance of his snoring features arose before us with spectre-like power; we suddenly devoted our mind and body to the first shop window, and were absorbed for some minutes in the interest of we do not recollect what, but we have a faint private belief that we were staring at "Real Havannahs," "Genuine Pigtail," and highly-coloured snuffboxes, which Mrs. Ellis would not permit the most venerable ". woman of England" to take a pinch out of.

There is no question that snoring is spiritually tabooed by all respectably-minded people; and if you wish particularly to wound the feelings or pride of any refined individuals, just impugn their poetical physique by the insinuation that they snore." If our kind readers should doubt the validity or point of these desultory remarks, let them institute a casual inquiry on the subject among their intimate friends; and if they elicit the confession of snoring from more than one in fifty-and he or she must be of a most lax mental and moral constitution-why, we beg pardon for our flippant injustice. But a sensible thought has just struck us,-that by the indulgence of our innocent goose-quill, some weary nose may be tempted to betray its own weakness, and we may be legally indicted as accessory before the fact ;"this we would religiously avoid, for we confidentially assure our readers that we would much rather have our nonsense "sneezed at" than "snored over any time.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE YOUTH OF NAPOLEON.

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THE public acts of the life of Napoleon are universally known, and never to be forgotten. The transactions of his secret policy are preserved in the

archives of every court in Eurpe, and must, sooner or later, be equally well known. As to the incidents of his private life, we find, in the memoirs published by different persons attached to the person of the emperor, or written under his own eye at St. Helena, a multitude of anecdotes, more or less authentic, which give, up to a certain point, some insight into his character and habits. All these recollections, however, relate to the more brilliant epochs of his life, but scarcely, if at all, touch upon the history of his early youth; and up to a long time after his death, the world was still in ignorance of all that pertained to his mental training,-to the formation of his intellectual powers. We were shown him in the full development of his genius; he was depicted as general, first consul, and emperor; and placed before us now in the imperial purple,- -now in his ocean prison. His course was traced for us from the moment when the eagle took his first flight upwards at Toulon, to that in which he was chained to the island rock; but we had not been told how those pinions were trained for such lofty soaring. Napoleon himself seemed to have been very reserved on this point, and, with the exception of a few college anecdotes, and some vague intimations, we were left, up to a very late period, with scarcely any light upon all that preceded his elevation, or could account for it.

And yet, what more interesting problem than the formation of such as Napoleon. How has he employed the years when he was only lieutenant of artillery?-how prepared for his high destiny? By what means were developed that extraordinary character that marvellous intellect? Were those intellectual heights attained by one single spring of a genius submitting to no restraint, needing none of the ordinary aids? or was that genius directed by an iron will, and supported by that steady and persevering diligence which is its natural ally, and in all its highest creations, its indispensable fellowworker and inseparable companion?

But to these questions we had been left without an answer for twenty years after the death of Napoleon, when the want was supplied, and in the only way it could be supplied, when almost all those who knew anything of his childhood and early youth had gone to the grave,-by himself.

It was during his consulship that the idea occurred to Napoleon, who, to use his own words at St. Helena, "saw himself already in history," of putting into safe keeping all the papers relating to his early youth. He placed them in a large official despatch-box, labelled " 'Correspondence with the First Consul; and drawing his pen over these words he wrote, "To be forwarded to Cardinal Fesch." This box, corded and sealed with the cardinal's crest, passed through the empire, and the restoration, and through many hands, with the seal still unbroken till about nine years ago, when for the first time it was opened, and the nature of its contents discovered.

These documents were divided into two classes; the first comprising the correspondence and the biographical details; and the second, some original compositions of Napoleon, with thoughts, notes, and passages, extracted from, and suggested by different works. To give some idea of the number of those documents, (all either autographs or copies, with corrections and annotations by the author,) it is sufficient to say that without reckoning these copies, and a crowd of detached pieces, there were in this box, thirty-eight common-place books wholly in Napoleon's own hand. The greater number of these books are dated, and contain all that he wrote, from the year 1786 to 1793. In them he seems to have found a vent for all the thoughts, opinions, and feelings, which his taciturn disposition and sombre gloom prevented

his communicating to his companions.

This gloom and reserve ought not to be matter of surprise; for he himself tells us, in a kind of biographical and chronological notice of his early life, that he left his home at nine years old, and did not return to Corsica till he was seventeen,-an isolation, which, while it doubtless strengthened his character, must yet have tended to embitter it. It will not be uninteresting to note, that in all these papers we find no complaint of his poverty, though in order to meet the educational expenses of his brother Louis, he was obliged to dress his own dinner.

It is not our intention to dwell upon the biographical notices; our object being to point attention to the numerous evidences of his arduous study and persevering diligence, affording a useful lesson which we would commend to the consideration of those who, feeling within them a certain excitement, regard it --and it may be justly-as the token of mental power, but forget that it is as surely an evidence of power needing the strengthening and discipline of order and systematic study; and who, therefore, require to be reminded that diligence and selfcontrol are the crowning attributes of genius. Napoleon no more attained his greatness by fits and starts,of a genius however extraordinary than he made his way over the Alps by a sudden flight. In both cases, the road was opened by labour, toil, and endurance.

His selection of works and his extracts from them are alike remarkable. First, we perceive a restless curiosity throwing itself into all subjects without any determinate object. He reads Buffon, occupies himself with natural history, natural philosophy, and medicine. He studies geography, ancient history, especially that of Greece. He cites Herodotus, Strabo, Diodorus Siculus; but, strange to say, the name of Plutarch, the teacher at whose feet so many illustrious men have sat, and which has been so often said to have been Napoleon's favourite study, is not once mentioned. He next turned successively to the history of China, of India and Arabia, of England and Germany, and then applied himself to French History, first in a general view, and afterwards in detail. He examines the resources, the revenue, the legislation, of France, and studies carefully the rights of the Gallican Church; and the three books filled with notes, written at eighteen, on the subject of the Sorbonne and the bull Unigenitus, and the religion of the state, at once anticipate and account for the Concordat. His object seemed rather to gain a knowledge of historical facts than to form a system from them. He soon directs his attention to the moral sciences; engages in the study of political economy and legislation; reads Filangieri, Mably, Necker, Smith, and takes extracts, often interspersed with critical remarks. The independence of his character is displayed here as in all else. A single instance must suffice. None but a young man, and a young Frenchman too, especially of that day, can estimate the difficulty of resisting the influence of Rousseau's opinions. Yet, notwithstanding this universal and scarcely disputed ascendancy; notwithstanding his agreement in many points, with the Citizen of Geneva, and his admiration for him, Napoleon was far from receiving all his doctrines. In an extract (dated Valence, August 8th, 1791,) from the "Discourse on the Origin and Grounds of the Inequality of Men," the young Napoleon wrote at the end of each paragraph, "I do not think so;" "I do not believe a word of all this." We can almost see him snatching up the pen to make his dissent; and then, as if unable to endure the splendid sophistry, he thus writes on,-"I do not believe that man has ever been an isolated being, without any

desire for intercourse with his fellows, without affection, without feeling * Why do we suppose

that men in a state of nature, eat? Simply because there never was an instance of a man's existing in any other way. By parity of reasoning, I think that man in a state of nature has had the same faculties of reasoning, the same affections which he now has, and he must have used them, for we have no instance of the existence of a man who has not used them. To feel is a want of the heart, as to eat is of the body. To feel is to attach ourselves-is to love. Man must know pity, friendship, and love; thence flow gratitude, veneration, respect. If it could have been otherwise, then the statement would be true, that feeling and reason are not inherent in man, but only the fruit of civilization-of society; then would there be no natural affection, no natural reason, no duty, no virtue, no conscience. No conscience? It is not the Citizen of Geneva who will tell us this!"

In this refutation, defective as it is in many respects, the fundamental vice of Rousseau's system is strongly and logically put. It needed to be a Napoleon to criticize so boldly the opinions of a writer who, in 1791, exercised such despotic and universal sway.

It is singular that amid all this studying and copying, Napoleon never learned the grammar of the French language, nor even to spell correctly. His writing, it is well known, was almost illegible, and he was aware of it himself. Immediately after his accession to the imperial throne, a somewhat shabbily-dressed man gained access to him. "Who are you?" asked Napoleon. "Sire, I had the honour of giving lessons in writing to your Majesty for fifteen months." "Your pupil does you great credit," replied the emperor, quickly; "I cannot but congratulate you." And he gave him a pension. His writing, always hardly legible, soon became a complete short-hand, scarcely half the letters being given that properly belonged to the words. It is asserted that this was done designedly, to conceal his ignor ance of orthography, which, as we have said, he could never learn.

There is but little trace of mathematical research, all remains of his studies in this way being limited to calculations for the artillery. All this regular and systematic course of reading had a definite object; nothing was done for mere amusement. Ariosto is the only work of imagination he seems to notice, and from which, strange to say, he has some extracts; though several scraps of not very good poetry scattered through his common-place books, show that he sometimes liked to try his powers in the more flowery fields of literature. We have also a Corsican romance entirely in his own handwriting, in which the dagger plays a very principal part; an English historic tale, called The Earl of Essex; and a short eastern story, entitled The Masked Prophet.

Amongst these papers are several harangues and speeches at popular meetings, and on deputations, the prospectus of the Calotte, (a secret society in the army), and various political notes, in which Napoleon presents himself as an ardent and devoted republican. "The republicans," he says, in one of his speeches, are reproached and calumniated; nay, it is even asserted that a republic is impossible in France." Further on is found the plan of a work on royalty. It is somewhat curious to see what Napoleon, then at Auxonne, thought of a monarchy on the 23rd of October, 1788.

"

"Dissertation on Kingly Government.-This work is to begin with a general view of the origin of the name of king, and the progress of its prestige in the minds of men. A military government is favourable to it. The work will then enter into the details of the usurped authority enjoyed by kings in the twelve

"The names of Mirabeau and of Raynal bring me back to Napoleon. Napoleon while at Ajaccio, during leave of absence, (it was, I think, in 1790,) had composed a history of Corsica; two copies of which I wrote, and the loss of which I much regret. One of these two MSS. was addressed to the Abbé Raynal, with whom my brother had become acquainted on his passage to Marseilles. Raynal thought the work so remarkable that he showed it to Mirabeau, who, when returning it, wrote to Raynal that this little history seemed to him an indication of genius of a first-rate order. Napoleon was enchanted at this opinion of the great orator. I have made many and vain attempts to recover these pieces, which were probably destroyed in the conflagration of our house by Paoli's troops."

Lucien was mistaken; the manuscript of this history was not destroyed,-it is amongst the papers committed to Cardinal Fesch, and consists of three large books, not in Napoleon's own hand, but with corrections and annotations by him. The history is in the form of letters addressed to the Abbé Raynal, and, beginning with the most remote period, terminates with the treaty of Coste between the Genoese and the Corsicans in the eighteenth century. The style is animated and fervid, and the whole breathes the most ardent love for Corsica. Indeed, there are many indications in the numerous documents on subjects connected with his native country, that Napoleon was then fully occupied with it, and with it only, and was preparing to play in it the part of Paoli.

It is as remarkable as little to be expected, that in writing this history, Napoleon did not confine himself to traditions more or less vague; but at a time when erudition was almost proscribed as antiquated stuff, incompatible with the march of intellect, he studied every document that could throw any light upon his subject, and not only cited his authorities, but collected the inedited documents to which he had referred for information. Many of these pieces are still annexed to the manuscript of The History of Corsica. This extraordinary man could do nothing by halves; all that he did was done in earnest. In the midst of the Revolution and its rapid torrent of fluctuating opinions, he felt that history is not to be improvised, but it must be studied in original documents.

We must not enter into quotations; nor the moral questions connected with Napoleon's aims and objects, with the use or misuse of his energies, for wo are now only dealing with the training by which he learned to concentrate them; and with the great lesson to be drawn from the fact that it was by strenuous perseverance and unwearied effort, under difficulties and impediments, that his mental powers were-we will not say created-but fostered and made effectual to the attainment of his aims and objects. Napoleon, as well as Michael Angelo, and Newton, and all posessed of true genius, had to submit to that law of human nature, which decrees that nothing great can be done without great effort. Of all the subjects of which he afterwards showed himself master, he was first the regular and diligent student. His clear ideas on legislation, on finance, and social organization, were not fruits of spontaneous growth, but the harvest reaped on the throne from the labours

of the poor lieutenant of artillery. He owed his mental development to-that to which in every age every great and strong mind has owed it-industry, to solitary and patient vigil, to difficulty and misfortune. True it is, that the Revolution opened to him a vast field, but had the Revolution never occurred, Napoleon must have become distinguished, for characters such as his seize upon, but are never the slaves of, circumstances. When, after seven years spent in retirement, Napoleon made his first appearance on the world's stage, he had already within him the germs of his future greatness. Nothing was fortuitous with him. His was a perpetual struggle, and not always a successful one. His being at Toulon was owing to his never losing an opportunity of coming forward. Never did a new minister come into power without receiving a memo rial from the young officer on the affairs of his native country; and never was any change in the military department of Corsica proposed, that Napoleon did not, at any risk, immediately repair thither. When unsuccessful in his object, be returned to Valence to think and to study; and these seven years of the youthful life of Napoleon, are to us the noblest and greatest in that life of prodigies; and are themselves sufficient to preclude his elevation being ascribed to fatality. And yet how often must the readers of the papers in that despatch-box have been struck with the most singular coincidences of facts and dates. For the first time was it then generally known that Napo leon in 1791, was receiving a pension from the king, and that his brevet as captain was signed by Louis XVI; and, as if the monarch before his fall intended to name his successor, it bears the date of August 30th, One Thousand Seven Hundred and Ninety Two. In the geographical note-book in Napoleon's own hand, but unfinished, the last words are and do they not contain the most extraordinary prediction ?—

Sainte Helene, petite île.

And there, indeed, the emperor was to close his Geography.

LEAVES FROM THE DIARY OF A LAWCLERK.

A DARK CHAPTER.

A SMALL pamphlet was printed at Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, in 1808, which purports to be "A Full and Complete Summary of the Extraordinary Matters brought to light concerning the Bridgman Family and Richard Green, of Lavenham, with many interesting Particulars never before published." By this slight brochure-which appears to have had a local circulation only, and that a very confined one-I have corrected and enlarged my own version of the following dark page in the domestic annals of this country.

One Ephraim Bridgman, who died in 1783, had for many years farmed a large quantity of land in the neighbourhood of Lavenham, or Lanham (the name is spelt both ways), a small market-town about twelve miles south of Bury St. Edmunds. He was also land-agent as well as tenant to a noble lord possessing much property thereabout, and appears to have been a very fast man for those times, as, although he kept up appearances to the last, his only child and heir, Mark Bridgman, found, on looking closely into his deceased father's affairs, that were everybody paid, he himself would be left little better than a pauper. Still, if the noble landlord could be induced to give a very long day for the heavy balance due to him,-not only for arrears of rent, but moneys received on his lordship's account, Mark, who was a prudent,

Mark

energetic young man, nothing doubted of pulling through without much difficulty,-the farm being low-rented, and the agency lucrative. This desirable object, however, proved exceedingly difficult of attainment, and after a protracted and fruitless negotiation, by letter, with Messrs. Winstanley, of Lincoln's-InnFields, London, his lordship's solicitors, the young farmer determined, as a last resource, on a journey to town, in the vague hope that on a personal interview he should find those gentlemen not quite such square, hard, rigid, persons as their written communications indicated them to be. Delusive hope! They were precisely as stiff, formal, accurate, and unvarying as their letters. "The exact balance due to his lordship," said Winstanley, senior, "is, as previously stated, £2,103. 14s. 6d., which sum, secured by warrant of attorney, must be paid as follows: one half in eight, and the remaining moiety in sixteen months from the present time." Bridgman was in despair: taking into account other liabilities that would be falling due, compliance with such terms was, he felt, merely deferring the evil day, and he was silently and moodily revolving in his mind whether it might not be better to give up the game at once rather than engage in a prolonged, and almost inevitably disastrous struggle, when another person entered the office and entered into conversation with the solicitor. At first the young man did not appear to heed,--perhaps did not hear what was said, -but after a while one of the clerks noticed that his attention was suddenly and keenly aroused, and that he eagerly devoured every word that passed between the new comer and Mr. Winstanley. At length the lawyer, as if to terminate the interview, said, as he replaced a newspaper The Public Advertiser-an underlined notice in which had formed the subject of his colloquy with the stranger, upon a side-table, by which sat Mark Bridgman. "You desire us then, Mr. Evans, to continue this advertisement for some time longer?" Mr. Evans replied, "Certainly, six months longer, if necessary." He then bade the lawyers "good day," and left the office.

"Well, what do you say, Mr. Bridgman?" asked Mr. Winstanley, as soon as the door had closed. "Are you ready to accept his lordship's very lenient proposal?"

"Yes," was the quick reply. "Let the document be prepared at once, and I will execute it before I leave.' This was done, and Mark Bridgman hurried off, evidently, it was afterwards remembered, in a high state of flurry and excitement. He had also, they found, taken the newspaper with him, inadvertence, the solicitor supposed, of course.

by

Within a week of this time, the good folk of Lavenham, especially its womankind,-were thrown into a ferment of wonder, indignation, and bewilderment! Rachel Merton, the orphan dressmaking girl, who had been engaged to, and about to marry Richard Green, the farrier and blacksmith,-and that a match far beyond what she had any right to expect, for all her pretty face and pert airs, was positively being courted by Bridgman, young, handsome, rich, Mark Bridgman of Red Lodge (the embarrassed state of the gentleman-farmer's affairs was entirely unsuspected in Lavenham); ay, and by way of marriage, too,-openly,-respectfully,-deferentially, as if he, not Rachel Merton, were the favoured and honoured party! What on earth, everybody asked, was the world coming to?-a question most difficult of solution; but all doubt with respect to the bona fide nature of Mark Bridgman's intentions towards the fortunate dressmaker was soon at an end; he and Rachel being duly pronounced man and wife at the parish church within little more than a fortnight of the commencement of his strange and hasty wooing!

All Lavenham agreed that Rachel Merton had shamefully jilted poor Green, and yet it may be doubted if there were many of them that, similarly tempted, would not have done the same. A pretty orphan girl, hitherto barely earning a subsistence by her needle, and about to throw herself away upon a coarse, repulsive person, but one degree higher than herself in the social scale-entreated by the handsomest young man about Lavenham to be his wife, and the mistress of Red Lodge, with nobody knows how many servants, dependents, labourers! the offer was irresistible! It was also quite natural that the jilted blacksmith should fiercely resent-as he did- his sweetheart's faithless conduct; and the assault which his angry excitement induced him to commit upon his successful rival a few days previous to the wedding, was far too severely punished, everybody admitted, by the chastisement inflicted by Mark Bridgman upon his comparatively weak and powerless assailant.

The morning after the return of the newly-married couple to Red Lodge from a brief wedding-trip, a newspaper which the bridegroom had recently ordered to be regularly supplied was placed upon the table. He himself was busy with breakfast, and his wife, after a while, opened it, and ran her eye carelessly over its columns. Suddenly an exclamation of extreme surprise escaped her, followed by-"Goodness gracious, my dear Mark, do look here!" Mark did look, and read an advertisement aloud, to the effect that 66 'If Rachel Edwards, formerly of Bath, who, in 1762, married John Merton, bandmaster of the 29th Regiment of Infantry, and afterwards kept a school in Manchester, or any lineal descendant of hers, would apply to Messrs. Winstanley, solicitors, Lincoln's-Inn-Fields, they would hear of something greatly to their advantage." "Why, dear Mark, said the pretty bride, as her husband ceased reading, "my_mother's maiden name was Rachel Edwards, and I am, as you know, her only surviving child!" "God bless me, to be sure! I remember now hearing your father speak of it. What can this great advantage be, wonder? I tell you what we'll do, love," the husband added, "you would like to see London, I know. We'll start by coach to-night, and I'll call upon these lawyers, and find out what it all means.' This proposition was, of course, gladly acceded to. They were gone about a fortnight, and on their return it became known that Mark Bridgman had come into possession of £12,000 in right of his wife, who was entitled to that sum by the will of her mother's maiden sister, Mary Edwards, of Bath. The bride appears not to have had the slightest suspicion that her husband had been influenced by any other motive than her personal charms in marrying her--a pleasant illusion which, to do him justice, his unvarying tenderness towards her through life, confirmed and strengthened; but others, unblinded by vanity, naturally surmised the truth. Richard Green, especially, as fully believed that he had been deliberately, and with malice prepense, tricked out of £12,000, as of the girl herself; and this conviction, there can be no doubt, greatly increased and inflamed his rage against Mark Bridgman,-so much so that it became at last the sole thought and purpose of his life, as to how he might safely and effectually avenge himself of the man who was flaunting it so bravely in the world, whilst he-poor duped and despised castaway-was falling lower and lower in the world every day he lived. This was the natural consequence of his increasingly dissolute and idle habits. It was not long before an execution for rent swept away his scanty stock in trade, and he thenceforth became a ragged vagabond hanger-on about the place, seldom at work, and as often as possible