I can he made no distinction. But he never lost she could digest a dose of adulation, short sight of sex, or overlooked it in the casual- of insincerity, with as little injury to her ties of a disadvantageous situation. I have humility as most young women: but that seen him stand bareheaded-smile if you a little before he had commenced his compli please to a poor servant-girl, while she has ments - she had overheard him by accident, been inquiring of him the way to some in rather rough language, rating a young street-in such a posture of unforced civility, woman, who had not brought home his as neither to embarrass her in the accept- cravats quite to the appointed time, and she ance, nor himself in the offer, of it. He was thought to herself, "As I am Miss Susan no dangler, in the common acceptation of Winstanley, and a young lady—a reputed the word, after women: but he reverenced beauty, and known to be a fortune, and upheld, in every form in which it came before him, womanhood. I have seen him nay, smile not tenderly escorting a marketwoman, whom he had encountered in a shower, exalting his umbrella over her poor basket of fruit, that it might receive no damage, with as much carefulness as if she had been a Countess. To the reverend form of Female Eld he would yield the wall (though it were to an ancient beggar-woman) assistance; and I thought, that if it were with more ceremony than we can afford to show our grandams. He was the Preux Chevalier of Age; the Sir Calidore, or Sir Tristan, to those who have no Calidores or Tristans to defend them. The roses, that had long faded thence, still bloomed for him in those withered and yellow cheeks. - He was never married, but in his youth he paid his addresses to the beautiful Susan Winstanley-old Winstanley's daughter of Clapton who dying in the early days of their courtship, confirmed in him the resolution of perpetual bachelorship. It was during their short courtship, he told me, that he had been one day treating his mistress with a profusion of civil speeches - the common gallantries to which kind of thing she had hitherto manifested no repugnance -but in this instance with no effect. He could not obtain from her a decent acknowledgment in return. She rather seemed to resent his compliments. He could not set it down to caprice, for the lady had always shown herself above that littleness. When he ventured on the following day, finding her a little better humoured, to expostulate with her on her coldness of yesterday, she confessed, with her usual frankness, that she had no sort of dislike to his attentions; that she could even endure some high-flown compliments; that a young woman placed in her situation had a right to expect all sort of civil things said to her; that she hoped have my choice of the finest speeches from the mouth of this very fine gentleman who is courting me-but if I had been poor Mary Such-a-one (naming the milliner), – and had failed of bringing home the cravats to the appointed hour-though perhaps I had sat up half the night to forward them — what sort of compliments should I have received then? And my woman's pride came to my only to do me honour, a female, like myself, might have received handsomer usage: and I was determined not to accept any fine speeches, to the compromise of that sex, the belonging to which was after all my strongest claim and title to them." I think the lady discovered both generosity, and a just way of thinking, in this rebuke which she gave her lover; and I have sometimes imagined, that the uncommon strain of courtesy, which through life regulated the actions and behaviour of my friend towards all of womankind indiscriminately, owed its happy origin to this seasonable lesson from the lips of his lamented mistress. I wish the whole female world would entertain the same notion of these things that Miss Winstanley showed. Then we should see something of the spirit of consistent gallantry; and no longer witness the anomaly of the same man -a pattern of true politeness to a wife-of cold contempt, or rudeness, to a sister the idolator of his female mistress- the disparager and dispiser of his no less female aunt, or unfortunate — still female- maiden cousin. Just so much respect as a woman derogates from her own sex, in whatever condition placed-her handmaid, or dependant - she deserves to have. diminished from herself on that score; and probably will feel the diminution, when youth, and beauty, and advantages, not inseparable from sex, shall lose of their attraction. What a woman should demand of a man | attentions, incident to individual preference, in courtship, or after it, is first-respect be so many pretty additaments and ornafor her as she is a woman; - and next to ments -as many, and as fanciful, as you that to be respected by him above all other please to that main structure. Let her women. But let her stand upon her female first lesson be with sweet Susan Winstanley character as upon a foundation; and let the - to reverence her sex. THE OLD BENCHERS OF THE INNER TEMPLE. I was born, and passed the first seven | astoundment of the young urchins, my conyears of my life, in the temple. Its church, temporaries, who, not being able to guess at its halls, its gardens, its fountain, its river, I its recondite machinery, were almost tempted had almost said — for in those young years, to hail the wondrous work as magic! What what was this king of rivers to me but a an antique air had the now almost effaced stream that watered our pleasant places? sun-dials, with their moral inscriptions, these are of my oldest recollections. I seeming coevals with that Time which they repeat, to this day, no verses to myself more measured, and to take their revelations of its frequently, or with kindlier emotion, than flight immediately from heaven, holding corthose of Spenser, where he speaks of this respondence with the fountain of light! spot. How would the dark line steal imperceptibly on, watched by the eye of childhood, eager to detect its movement, never catched, nice as an evanescent cloud, or the first arrests of sleep! There when they came, whereas those bricky towers, Indeed, it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What a transition for a countryman visiting London for the first time-the passing from the crowded Strand or Fleetstreet, by unexpected avenues, into its magnificent ample squares, its classic green recesses! What a cheerful, liberal look hath that portion of it, which, from three sides, overlooks the greater garden; that goodly pile Of building strong, albeit of Paper hight, Ah! yet doth beauty like a dial hand What a dead thing is a clock, with its ponderous embowelments of lead and brass, its pert or solemn dulness of communication, compared with the simple altar-like structure, and silent heart-language of the old dial! It stood as the garden god of Christian gardens. Why is it almost everywhere vanished? If its business-use be superseded by more elaborate inventions, its moral uses, its beauty, might have pleaded for its conconfronting with massy contrast, the lighter, tinuance. It spoke of moderate labours, of older, more fantastically shrouded one, pleasures not protracted after sun-set, of named of Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown temperance, and good hours. It was the Office-row (place of my kindly engendure), primitive clock, the horologe of the first right opposite the stately stream, which world. Adam could scarcely have missed it washes the garden-foot with her yet scarcely in Paradise. It was the measure appropriate trade-polluted waters, and seems but just for sweet plants and flowers to spring by, weaned from her Twickenham Naiades! a for the birds to apportion their silver warbman would give something to have been lings by, for flocks to pasture and be led to born in such places. What a collegiate fold by. The shepherd "carved it out aspect has that fine Elizabethan hall, where quaintly in the sun;" and, turning philo the fountain plays, which I have made to sopher by the very occupation, provided it rise and fall, how many times! to the with mottoes more touching than tomb stones It was a pretty device of the gar- What wondrous life is this I lead! The mind, that ocean, where each kind To a green thought in a green shade. My soul into the boughs does glide; How could such sweet and wholesome 1 ours Or is there not in the bosoms of the wisest and the best some of the child's heart left, to respond to its earliest enchantments? The figures were grotesque. Are the stiff-wigged living figures, that still flitter and chatter about that area, less Gothic in appearance? or is the splutter of their hot rhetoric onehalf so refreshing and innocent as the little cool playful streams those exploded cherubs uttered? They have lately gothicised the entrance to the Inner Temple - hall, and the library front; to assimilate them, I suppose, to the body of the hall, which they do not at all resemble. What is become of the winged horse that stood over the former? a stately arms! and who has removed those frescoes of the Virtues, which Italianised the end of the Paper-buildings?—my first hint of allegory! They must account to me for these things, which I miss so greatly. The terrace is, indeed, left, which we used to call the parade; but the traces are passed away of the footsteps which made its pavement awful! It is become common and profane. The old benchers had it almost sacred to themselves, in the forepart of the day at least. They might not be sided or jostled. Their air and dress asserted the parade. You left wide spaces betwixt you when you passed them. We walk on even terms with their successors. The roguish eye of J-11, ever ready to be delivered of a jest, almost invites a stranger to vie a The artificial fountains of the metropolis repartee with it. But what insolent familiar are, in like manner, fast vanishing. Most of durst have mated Thomas Coventry? them are dried up or bricked over. Yet, whose person was a quadrate, his step massy where one is left, as in that little green nook and elephantine, his face square as the lion's, behind the South-Sea House, what a fresh- his gait peremptory and path-keeping, indiness it gives to the dreary pile! Four little vertible from his way as a moving column, winged marble boys used to play their virgin the scarecrow of his inferiors, the browfancies, spouting out ever fresh streams from beater of equals and superiors, who made a their innocent-wanton lips in the square of solitude of children wherever he came, for Lincoln's Inn, when I was no bigger than they fled his insufferable presence, as they they were figured. They are gone, and the would have shunned an Elisha bear. His spring choked up. The fashion, they tell growl was as thunder in their ears, whether me, is gone by, and these things are esteemed he spake to them in mirth or in rebuke; his childish. Why not, then, gratify children, invitatory notes being, indeed, of all, the by letting them stand? Lawyers, I suppose, most repulsive and horrid. Clouds of snuff, were children once. They are awakening aggravating the natural terrors of his speech, images to them at least. Why must every- broke from each majestic nostril, darkening thing smack of man and mannish? Is the world all grown up? Is childhood dead? From a copy of verses entitled The Garden. the air. He took it, not by pinches, but a palmful at once, diving for it under the mighty flaps of his old-fashioned waistcoat pocket; his waistcoat red and angry, his coat dark rappee, tinctured by dye original, and by adjuncts, with buttons of obsolete gold. And so he paced the terrace. By his side a milder form was sometimes to be seen; the pensive gentility of Samuel Salt. They were coevals, and had nothing but that and their benchership in common. In politics Salt was a whig, and Coventry a staunch tory. Many a sarcastic growl did the latter cast out for Coventry had a rough spinous humour-at the political confederates of his associate, which rebounded from the gentle bosom of the latter like cannon-balls from wool. You could not ruffle Samuel Salt. motion with him observed, "it was a gloomy day," and added, "Miss Blandy must be hanged by this time, I suppose." Instances of this sort were perpetual. Yet S. was thought by some of the greatest men of his time a fit person to be consulted, not alone in matters pertaining to the law, but in the ordinary niceties and embarrassments of conduct - from force of manner entirely. He never laughed. He had the same good fortune among the female world, was a known toast with the ladies, and one or two are said to have died for love of him—I suppose, because he never trifled or talked gallantry with them, or paid them, indeed, hardly common attentions. He had a fine face and person, but wanted, methought, the spirit that should have shown them off with advantage to the women. His eye lacked lustre. Not so, thought Susan P-; who, at the advanced age of sixty, was seen, in the cold evening time, unaccompanied, wetting the pavement of B- -d Row, with tears that fell in drops which might be heard, because her friend had died that day — he, whom she had pursued with a hopeless passion for the last forty years, - a passion, which years could not extinguish or abate; nor the long-resolved, yet gently-enforced, puttings-off of unrelenting bachelorhood dissuade from its cherished purpose. Mild Susan P, thou hast now thy friend in heaven! S. had the reputation of being a very clever man, and of excellent discernment in the chamber practice of the law. I suspect his knowledge did not amount to much. When a case of difficult disposition of money, testamentary or otherwise, came before him, he ordinarily handed it over, with a few instructions, to his man Lovel, who was a quick little fellow, and would dispatch it out of hand by the light of natural understanding, of which he had an uncommon share. It was incredible what repute for talents S. enjoyed by the mere trick of gravity. He was a shy man; a child might pose him in a minute-indolent and procrastinating to the last degree. Yet men would give him credit for vast application, in spite of himself. He was not to be trusted with Thomas Coventry was a cadet of the noble himself with impunity. He never dressed family of that name. He passed his youth for a dinner party, but he forgot his sword in contracted circumstances, which gave him they wore swords then-or some other neces- early those parsimonious habits which in sary part of his equipage. Lovel had his eye after life never forsook him; so that with upon him on all these occasions, and ordinarily one windfall or another, about the time I gave him his cue. If there was anything knew him he was master of four or five which he could speak unseasonably, he was hundred thousand pounds; nor did he look sure to do it. He was to dine at a relative's or walk worth a moidore less. He lived in of the unfortunate Miss Blandy on the day a gloomy house opposite the pump in Serof her execution; -and L., who had a wary jeart's inn, Fleet-street. J., the counsel, is foresight of his probable hallucinations, be- doing self-imposed penance in it, for what fore he set out schooled him, with great reason I divine not, at this day. C. had an anxiety, not in any possible manner to allude agreeable seat at North Cray, where he to her story that day. S. promised faithfully seldom spent above a day or two at a time to observe the injunction. He had not been in the summer; but preferred, during the seated in the parlour, where the company hot months, standing at his window in this was expecting the dinner summons, four damp, close, well-like mansion, to watch, as minutes, when, a pause in the conversation he said, “the maids drawing water all day ensuing, he got up, looked out of window, long." I suspect he had his within - door and pulling down his ruffles - an ordinary reasons for the preference. Hic currus et tion, by the dint of natural genius merely; turned cribbage boards, and such small cabinet toys to perfection; took a hand at quadrille or bowls with equal facility; made punch better than any man of his degree in England; had the merriest quips and con arma fuêre. He might think his treasures little fellow breathing, had a face as gay as more safe. His house had the aspect of a Garrick's, whom he was said greatly to restrong-box. C. was a close hunks-a hoarder semble (I have a portrait of him which conrather than a miser- or, if a miser, none of firms it), possessed a fine turn for humorous the mad Elwes breed, who have brought dis-poetry-next to Swift and Prior-moulded credit upon a character which cannot exist heads in clay or plaster of Paris to admirawithout certain admirable points of steadiness and unity of purpose. One may hate a true miser, but cannot, I suspect, so easily despise him. By taking care of the pence he is often enabled to part with the pounds, upon a scale that leaves us careless generous fellows halting at an immeasurable distance ceits; and was altogether as brimful of behind. C. gave away 30,000l. at once in his life-time to a blind charity. His housekeeping was severely looked after, but he kept the table of a gentleman. He would know who came in and who went out of his house, but his kitchen chimney was never suffered to freeze. 66 rogueries and inventions as you could desire. He was a brother of the angle, moreover, and just such a free, hearty, honest companion as Mr. Izaak Walton would have chosen to go a-fishing with. I saw him in his old age and the decay of his faculties, palsy-smitten, in the last sad stage of human Salt was his opposite in this, as in all weakness-"a remnant most forlorn of what never knew what he was worth in the world; he was,"- yet even then his eye would light and having but a competency for his rank, up upon the mention of his favourite Garrick. which his indolent habits were little calcu- He was greatest, he would say, in Bayeslated to improve, might have suffered severely was upon the stage nearly throughout the if he had not had honest people about him. whole performance, and as busy as a bee." Lovel took care of everything. He was at At intervals, too, he would speak of his for once his clerk, his good servant, his dresser, mer life, and how he came up a little boy his friend, his flapper," his guide, stop- from Lincoln, to go to service, and how his watch, auditor, treasurer. He did nothing mother cried at parting with him, and how without consulting Lovel, or failed in any- he returned, after some few years' absence, thing without expecting and fearing his ad-in his smart new livery, to see her, and she monishing. He put himself almost too much | blessed herself at the change, and could in his hands, had they not been the purest hardly be brought to believe that it was in the world. He resigned his title almost her own bairn." And then, the excitement to respect as a master, if L. could ever have subsiding, he would weep, till I have wished forgotten for a moment that he was a ser- that sad second-childhood might have a mother still to lay its head upon her lap. But the common mother of us all in no long time after received him gently into hers. With Coventry, and with Salt, in their walks upon the terrace, most commonly Peter Pierson would join to make up a third. They did not walk linked arm-inarm in those days "as triumvirs sweep the streets," but generally with both hands folded behind them for state, or with one at least behind, the other carrying a cane. P. was a benevolent, but not a prepossessing man. He had that in his face which you could not term unhappiness; it rather implied an incapacity of being happy. His cheeks were colourless, L. was the liveliest even to whiteness. Ilis look was uninviting, vant. I knew this Lovel. He was a man of an incorrigible and losing honesty. A good fellow withal, and "would strike." In the cause of the oppressed he never considered inequalities, or calculated the number of his opponents. He once wrested a sword out of the hand of a man of quality that had drawn upon him, and pommelled him severely with the hilt of it. The swordsman had offered insult to a female-an occasion upon which no odds against him could have prevented the interference of Lovel. He would stand next day bareheaded to the same person modestly to excuse his interference-for L. never forgot rank where something better was not concerned. now our stout |