"Why-Mascall— we -I—want — could you-" stammered I, "oblige-me-with the loan of half a guinea?"

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Sorry to refuse you, but-"

No buts, Mascall. Why, Percy Hamilton is a cornet in His Majesty's service," responded Kirkonnel.

A bright idea flashed across my mind, and I continued

"Of course, Mascall, I will give you a cheque on my agent for that and the sum I am indebted to you, two pounds private account; the other you'll send home at the holidays, and if you advance twenty shillings to make it even money, I'll write you an order for three pounds."

The worthy hosier could not well refuse this fair offer, and presenting me with a piece of paper, I authorized Messrs. Greenwood and Cox to transfer the above mentioned sum from their well-filled coffers to the humble till of the Westminster boys' haberdasher.

With this large increase of funds, for all we could have previously scraped together was one shilling and fourpence, we ran off to Bridgeman's, where we found De Tourville waiting for us. The bold manner in which we walked into the small room devoted to ices, and the imperative tone in which I ordered four strawberry-creams and some spongecakes, so different from the humble way in which we usually crept into the shop, and sotto voce asked if they would "tick an ice," at once showed that we were flush of money, and the order was instantaneously obeyed.

"I have spoken to my father," said De Tourville, "and if you like to get up a play at his house, he will be delighted to lend you his dancing-room; it is now partly fitted up as a theatre, and he will complete it in a few days.'

We expressed our acknowledgments, and then proceeded to talk over the proposed performance, when it was finally arranged that each of us should cast and select a few scenes, by which arrangement neither of the three stars, as we then considered ourselves, should be in the ascendant. F-proposed scenes from Julius Cæsar, Kirkonnel clung to Othello, and I to "Home, sweet Home's" tragedy of Douglas.

"And now for the after piece," said I, at the same time ordering four glasses of brandy cherries.

While discussing this topic, Kirkonnel's attention was attracted by a play-bill of the Royal Circus, which announced among other entertainments, for the benefit of the clown of that establishment, the principal scenes from the celebrated pantomime of Mother Goose.

"What say you to Mother Goose?"

"Capital!" we all responded.

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Percy shall be Squire Bugle' (afterwards Clown, with the song of 'Tippetiwitchet'), F- Avaro' (afterwards Pantaloon), I," continued Kirkonnel, "Colin' (afterwards Harlequin), and De Tourville shall double Mother Goose', in the opening, and the cabin-boy, with a naval hornpipe instead of the song.

"But who is to be Columbine ?" asked F. "A pantomime without a Columbine would be a regular case of Hamlet' without the Prince of Denmark."

"I think," said De Tourville, " one of my father's pupils would take the part; at all events I will speak to him upon the subject. But perhaps before you go home you would like to see the theatre."

To this we agreed nem. con. I then proceeded to pay the amount of the day's "tuck," and ten shillings on account of my former "tick," when De Tourville approached, and insisted upon settling for his share. In vain we told him he was our guest-that it was upon our business that he had attended; but no pleading, no argument would induce him, although in humble means, to sacrifice in the slightest degree his independence.

We then ran off to the residence of Monsieur Achille Gardel De Tourville, Professeur de Danse, in Queen's Square, Westminster, and were immediately introduced to that worthy personage and his sposa. Achille, who had gained some reputation in early life as a principal dancer at the Parisian Opera House, was now in his sixtieth year; he still, how.. ever, retained a good figure, and, thanks to a black curly wig and an elaborate toilet, a tolerably juvenile appearance. Madame De Tourville

showed the remains of beauty, although time, rouge, and white paint had deprived her of her former charms. She was a stately-looking dame, whose mother, Madame Mercier, had, upon the death of her husband, established herself as the hostess of a pension bourgeoise in the French capital.

The table d'hôte over which the widow so gracefully presided was the receptable for artists, claqueurs, litterateurs (who did much in the accident and offence line), and hangers-on of the theatres; the dinners were as good as the price (fifty sous per head) could command; but the principal attraction at Madame Mercier's was her young and blooming daughter, Clarisse. Struck with her Hebe-looking appearance and faultless figure, Achille de Tourville, whose heart was as vulnerable as the heel of his great namesake, and who was an habitué at the pension, proposed and was accepted. In less than a month, Madame Mercier, after indulging largely in he. favourite dish, stewed mushrooms, was attacked with a fit of apoplexy, and carried suddenly off. De Tourville and his bride now took advantage of the peace that existed between England and France, and having disposed of the mother's establishment, that had been bequeathed to them, quitted the city of frivolities (as Paris has aptly been termed) for the more sombre metropolis-London.

As, at the period we write of, foreign artists were less numerous in our country than they are at the present day, and as Monsieur de Tourville had brought over with him many letters of introduction, the light-heeled Achille found little difficulty in getting an engagement at our Opera House; after retaining his position for some years as premier danseur, from Paris, a distinguished title at that time, he dwindled down to ballet, and finally to that of dancing master. In the mean time Madame de Tourville had made her début as principal walking lady, and her handsome face and fine figure soon established her as the stock Juno, Minerva, Calypso, Orithya, and Euridice, of every mythological ballet, and the representative of the stately dames, queens, empresses, princesses, duchesses, countesses, of more modern pageants. And here, as the novelists say, we wish we could throw the veil of oblivion over the fair Clarissa's conduct, for while it is a grateful theme to speak of woman in her purity, it is lamentable to think of her as the blighted flower on the path of innocence. But avaunt with sentiment and false delicacy; the sad truth must be spoken. In an evil hour la belle Clarisse listened to the passionate addresses of a young and gallant nobleman, and eloped

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with him. Great was the consternation behind the scenes, upon the night the escapade was made known. Achille denounced vengeance on the seducer of his wife; the ladies of the corps de ballet were loud in their lamentations at the fall of the frail one; the figurantes were furious at their "erring sister's shame;" the coryphées were clamorous in their censure of one whom they always had thought to be no better than she should be; the dressers declared that they never seed no good come of them there foreigneering ladies; the carpenters said it was all along with letting the nobs upon the stage; the scene-shifters emphatically exclaimed that the conduct of Lord was oudacious, as he had never even so much as paid his footing ;" and that humble, yet useful individual who, with, water-pot in hand, had from time immemorial sprinkled the boards to lay the dust, and saved the light-footed damsels from many a slip, now mourned the faux pas that had befallen the wife of the ballet-master. This ten days' wonder in due time ceased to occupy the attention of the public, both before and behind the curtain, and ere the next operatic season had commenced, Madame de Tourville, through the instrumentality of some friends, had been restored to her relenting husband's roof. Rumour assigned more weighty reasons for this conduct than a mere amiable weakness on the part of the tenderhearted Achille; and, among other insinuations, it was hinted that a settlement of one hundred a year upon the mother, and the same sum during the life of the young stranger (that had been born to the modern Mrs. Haller), accounted for the forgiving disposition of the aggrieved Maître de Ballet. Charles De Tourville, for so this offshoot was named after his real father, showed by his high-minded bearing that the blood of the Plantagenets still flowed in his veins, however much the stream might have been polluted by its confluence with other and less pure sources. At an carly age the youth was sent to Westminster School, as a home boarder; through which, unfortunately, he passed the best portion of his time with his reputed parent, and imbibed those contracted notions of high life which induced him to make the stage, in its least classical form, his profession. In the army or navy of his country, Charles de Tourville might have established a name and reputation for himself; as it was, he was associated with a class, who, bright and numerous as have been the exceptions, do not hold that position in society that their talents would entitle them to.

Such was a brief history of the family that Kirkonnel, F, and myself, were introduced to on the afternoon of the day in which we had settled our private theatricals.

When the surly pedant, Doctor Johnson, denounced the letters of the eloquent, witty, lady-killing, polite Philip Dormer, fourth Earl of Chesterfield, to his son, as "inculcating the morals of a strumpet, with the manners of a dancing-master," he might have had a prophetic vision in his mind's eye of the flaunting lady and complaisant husband that, upon the occasion I allude to, rose to receive us. The blood mantled in poor Charles's cheeks as he witnessed the effect his own mother and presumed father had produced upon us; but the interview, and the results it led to, must be reserved for another chapter.

BIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM SCOTT.

BY GOLDFINCH.

Poor William Scott has run his last race-the race of life! and we trust the Judge's fiat is recorded in his favour. William will no more hear the music of the saddling bell, nor vault into the pig-skin "cager for the fray." The whilom star of the northern jockeys, and the pride of the Pigburn Stable has "pal'd its ineffectual fire." Death on the pale horse has beaten poor William in his last race! and in the prime of manhood he has passed from among us! What a crowd of recollections does the demise of this once-celebrated jockey bring forth what visions of past Derbies, Oaks, and St. Legers, in which he shone victoriously! and what reminiscences of the noble animals he bestrode, and whom he piloted to conquest! We could fill a volume were we to trace his career step by step, with liberty to turn aside, ever and anon, into the highways and byeways, and trace the petty streamlets which formed the current of his existence-and detail all his "strange, eventful history;" for many were the ups and downs poor William experienced, both literally and metaphorically. But ours will only be a brief notice of his life-fruitful though the subject is. William Scott, whose name was once talismanic at Doncaster, and who so long ruled the destinies of the Pigburn Stable, departed this life at Highfield House, near Malton, in Yorkshire, on Tuesday, September 26th, 1848, in the fifty-first year of his age. He will long be remembered by all who take an interest in the turf; and in his own locality he will not be soon forgotten, for his hand was ever ready to help the helpless, and his purse open to the needy. Wild, eccentric creature that he was, his heart was still in the right place; and the charity which covers a multitude of sins will plead his cause effectually in all right-feeling bosoms.

William Scott had his faults, and grave ones too; but who amongst us is faultless? His foibles and eccentricities were ever more injurious to himself than his fellow men, and few of his own grade have descended to the grave more generally and sincerely lamented than William Scott. He was a man of effervescent spirits, a creature of impulse, "a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy," and his flashes of merriment were indeed "wont to set the table in a roar.” There was a fulness in his mirth, and a quaintness in his jests (rough though they were at times) that always made him the prominent feature in every company, high or low, that he mixed in, and which acquired for him the appellation of "GLORIOUS BILL." He has left behind him a legacy of queer sayings and pithy anecdotes; but most of them are redolent of midnight revelry and the bottle. He alone could retail them with unvaried gusto; and as they died, so they must be buried with him.

The constitution of William Scott must have been adamantine to have withstood for such a lengthened period the repeated attacks and indulgencies by which it was assailed. But these, as they ever will do, hurried him to a premature grave. Had he only have taken moderate care of himself, and lived within reasonable bounds, there is every probability he would have enjoyed a green old age: but William never

could withstand good company; and his being the life and soul of it, in his case, as it has been in many others, shortened his earthly career.

Let us drop the veil upon his faults, and record only his virtues; and would that all who have cried out against "our William" had as many to weigh in the balance against their peccadiloes.

a

It has been stated, and all but universally believed, that William Scott was a Yorkshireman; and the Northerns have, time out of mind, claimed him as such. Not so, however: William drew his first breath at Chippenham, in 1793. His father had previously acquired considerable repute, both as trainer and jockey, and had ultimately settled down at Brighton, where some dozen years ago he terminated his mortal existence at the very advanced age of ninetysix. When scarcely out of his swaddling clothes, Master Billy had strong penchant for the saddle, and as soon as they had clapped him upon Dobbin's back, seemed to care but little whether there was a saddle or not. This predilection, as regards the youngster, was not lost sight of by the father, who, when William was a mere chicken, sent him as a pigmy stable-boy to Newmarket, under the surveillance of, we believe, the late James Edwards; to which locality his brother John had also been previously sent. He was, however, subsequently transferred to the tutelage of James Croft, at Hambleton; and afterwards he was, for some time, settled under the same instructor, at Middleham, both in Yorkshire. From this epoch Bill became, as it were, identified with the county, and was looked upon as a native to the manner born. There is some difficulty at getting at his public maiden mount; but it is believed to have been in the vicinity of Oxford, where his father then resided.

We find him as early as 1814 bestriding Belville, who ran second to the clipper Cannon Ball. He also rode the celebrated horse, Doctor Syntax, the first time the Doctor ever ran. But in 1813 we find him on the back of Cerelia, riding five stone one pound, over York Race

course.

His last ride was upon his own horse, Christopher, for the Derby, 1847. Thus we have him as a recorded jockey for nearly thirty-five years.

At

His first regular master we believe to have been Mr. Thomas Houldsworth, for whom William Scott's brother John had become private trainer. He also frequently rode for Mr. Watt, of Bishop Burton, owner of Altesidora, Manella, Memnon, &c. At this period, in several encounters, be had fairly out-ridden all the old jockeys of the north. This daring on horseback, either across country, or after the hounds—in which he was in the habit of joining in both capacities-his then unshaken nerve and resolute boldness were manifest to all observers. this time, although rising much in public favour, it was not until he won the St. Leger, on Mr. Powlett's Jack Spiggot, that he was dubbed the Northern Star. There was now scarcely a race, from one end of the country to the other, in which he had not a mount. Besides Jack Spiggot, he steered to victory for various St. Legers, Memnon, Rowton, The Colonel, Don John, Charles the Twelfth, the Satirist, Launcelot, and his own nag Sir Tatton Sykes. Thus riding double the number (save one), for that race, of any other jockey living or dead.

His Derby triumphs were on St. Giles, Mundig, Attilla, and Cother