in a well-known hand-writing. "From the old 'un! | gates of the two parks; and stretching so far into Shades of filial duty! Pitching a mother's affection the road as to leave only a narrow opening for the amongst her son's ever-to-be-belaboured harpies! passage of vehicles and horses. At the moment at Browne, old fellow," (Mr. Browne curled his lip, and which the coach arrived at this passage, two lancers looked at the speaker)—" a glass of champagne, just trotted briskly past. to keep my spirits up before I 'open sesame.' To your first! How ever did you get it? What's this rigmarole on the envelope? Lionel Roakes, Esq., With his affectionate mother's congratulations on the "Lucky I'm going down. This blessed public sort of a mother's love would be all over Oxford in a few days. A dash under honourable! What can she mean by that? I'gin funk, as the poets have it, and winkin mary buds 'gin wake,' et cætera. She's queer at times!" At length, being quite up to the mark, Mr. L. Roakes collectedly tore open the envelope; and, drawing from thence a £300 Bank note, held it up, to the admiration of the company. "Three cheers for Mrs. Roakes!" exclaimed a short, slight man, with a small quantity of sandy hair, quick grey eyes, and a pointed, penetrating countenance. And cheers resounded from all parts of the room. "A trump, decidedly!-I wish I had written for more," murmured Roakes, thoughtfully. "Pull up!" shouted the coachman. There was not much difficulty in obeying this word of command on the ascent of the hill. The horses shook their heads, as if dissenting from the doctrine of being pulled up wherever their driver chose, and fidgeted about, as if unwilling to wait for any one. Perhaps you had better take the ribbons," suggested Roakes, at the same time handing them to their rightful owner, and resigning his seat. Whilst he was making the exchange, his attention was attracted by a small but very high platform, filled with the very commonest people; and conspicuous amongst them, what should he discover but the desperately attractive dress of his mother! At this moment, the Queen's guard of lancers trotted past, and Mrs. Roakes, in turning to look at it, caught sight of her son on the coach box of the Telegraph; a species of article into which she instantly became transformed. The marabouts in her bonnet shook violently, her steel-bedecked reticule was clevated, and glittered dazzlingly in the sunbeams as she waved it in hopes of attracting her Bachelor son's attention. He saw the pantomime plainly enough—too plainly — but, drawing his hat over his eyes, looked in another direction. The grooms in front of the royal carriage now appeared through the gates; and, immediately succeeding them, the royal carriage itself. Shouts rent the air, and terrified the horses of the Telegraph. Never was seen such a laying down of ears, and kicking, and standing up on hind legs; nor ever was heard such a rattling of harness, and sound of hoofs against the splinter bars. Shortly after this incident the breakfast-party broke up. Roakes paid a few of the more clamorous of his creditors. On the following day a Congregation was held, which, much to that gentleman's amusement, enjoyed the pleasant recreation of conferring upon him the degree of "Baccalaureus Artium." The next morning saw him with some of "Catch hold of their ears, or they'll be off!" his friends on the top of the last surviving coach to shouted the coachman, in a deliberate and resolute London. A fee of one pound to the coachman pur-tone; "and then I wouldn't give a tizzy for the chased for him the privilege of holding the ribbons, and twisting and untwisting the long-lashed whip. The greatest industry he had ever exhibited had been in acquiring the art of catching the doubled thong neatly on the fall; and even the coachman ever and anon cast a leer of envy at the consummate skill with which he performed this feat, ole kit o' ye!" Instantly, a swarm of male bipeds of every shade of dirt and costume were busy assisting; but so violent were the "tits," that it required three or four men holding on to the ears, neck, and bit, of each horse to restrain them. One exceedingly elaborately dressed, delicate-looking youth of about twenty white-gloved hand by way of assistance, smoking his cigar the while, and gently held a distant part of one of the reins with the tips of his fingers. The officiating coachman was one of the nearly extinct "bluff" species; and, in the profoundest contempt of this ill-placed dandyism, flipped him with the extreme end of the whip-cord of his whip with such precision and effect, that the young gentleman was heard to exclaim, as he walked off evidently in a more smart condition than before, “Pawn me word! hextrim hinsirlence!" Well, nay perfectly, as Roakes caught the whip-five, beautiful in whiskers and an imperial, extended a thong on the fall, it would have been sheer flattery to call him even a tolerable "whip." Dick Barnet, the coachman, however, was at his side; and, in spite of a little difficulty in managing the team into London, an honour he would almost rather have risked his own neck and those of the other passengers than resign, the journey was made in safety as far as to Hyde Park Corner. The last stage was a short one. It had been done somewhat leisurely, in order that the team (so said the present driver of it) might come in cool and gentlemanly; so that the animals, four bays, young, and in fine condition, were very fresh. To Roakes' unspeakable dismay, a dense mass of people was seen on the top of the hill, about the A very few seconds sufficed for the passing of the royal cavalcade, and the team was now at liberty to proceed. "Let them go!" growled the driver; "I'll take it out on 'em to-morrow!" The whole swarm which had settled on the heads and necks of the animals, looked up with an expression of astonishment into his face, as much as to say, "You don't mean that?" indeed was the state of external dilapidation in which Mrs. Roakes was laid upon the plain clean bed, in the only apartment in the hospital that chanced to be unoccupied. There she lay a complete wreck. How changed from the telegraphing splendour, which her son had been averse to recognise before his Oxford "Let them go!" he reiterated, in a stentorian friends! Some evil disposed person had pirated her tone. shawl in the confusion; her rich black satin dress was torn into tatters, like a fore-sail in a hurricane ; the white chip bonnet was crunched into a handful; and of all the delicate marabouts which Madame Smithiano had so exquisitely arranged, only one wretched stump remained clinging to the fore-top. The beaded reticule was imbedded immovably in her clenched hand; from either side of which two tasselled corners protruded, in a state of apoplectic distension, through the violent pressure they were experiencing. In an instant they were free. All four immediately took a survey of Piccadilly on their hind legs, and, dashing forward, sprung up into the air as though they would have cleared the metropolis at a jump. A steady but sharp pull of the ribbons from behind impressed a wholesome lesson upon their forwardness by throwing the two wheelers upon their haunches, and one of the leaders down upon his front legs. This seemed convincing; for three of them immediately trotted off at a handsome trot, the off leader still adhering to a short gallop, all, however, evi-The house surgeon was quickly at her side; and in dently in a somewhat mortified condition, and doing a very few minutes was able to pronounce, with some their work in some such manner as a Quaker pays decision, that he did not apprehend more serious church-rates. Scarcely were they well off before a consequences than a severe fright, and perhaps one loud crash, accompanied with piercing shrieks, pro- or two slight contusions. Her pulse was a trifle ceeded from the multitude they were just beginning hurried, but strong and regular; her breathing was to leave behind. but slightly affected, and no limb was broken, nor feature displaced. However, it was impossible to decide positively until she came out of her present state of apparent insensibility. "In fact," continued the surgeon, "that is the only symptom that affords me the slightest uneasiness." "There's work for the milliners!" remarked the coachman, with his head turned towards the quarter from which the sounds had proceeded. "I wouldn't give second-hand price for the bonnets and gowns arter that disaster. I hope nobody be hurt." "I must get down here," said Lionel Roakes, who, on turning round, saw that the exalted platform and every one on it had entirely disappeared. "Leave my luggage at the Cellars. Pull up, Dick!" "Sit still, sir; sit still," growled Dick; "I can't stop 'em again yet. They're like mad things still. You can't be of no good. Them's is smashed is smashed; and you can't unsmash 'em, you can't, sir." "Pull up, Dick, do you hear? Pull up instantly. I shall get down here, on this spot," said Roakes, making a movement to descend. "Oh, werry well, sir," Dick replied, with unusual suavity of manner, at the same time hitching his thong, and drawing the whipcord through his blue mouth. "By all manner of means. In course you must do as you please. Only take care of your shins. I shan't stop, as the treadmill said to the housebreaker." Finding Dick thus inflexible, Roakes raised himself again to the box, and whispered something into his ear, which sent all the filial affection that dwelt in his corpulent frame, colouring up into the only features of Dick's face which could by any possibility have been redder than they already were. "O bless me no! O bless me no!" he muttered, “Why on airth didn't you say so before? I beg your pardon-beg your pardon, sir; " and with one strong, steady pull, every one of the four bays was reined in as still as a stone wall. Roakes lost no time in descending and hastening to the spot of the catastrophe; where he arrived just in time to attend his mother, as she was borne in a senseless state into St. George's Hospital. Deplorable VOL. VI. Just as this observation had escaped his lips, Mrs. Roakes opened her eyes, with such a fearfully scared expression depicted in them, that her medical attendant was all but thrown into a fit of violent titillation of the risible muscles. "Where am I-where-where?" she asked, in a tone of agony; and shuddering violently, relapsed into her former state of apoplectic coma. The surgeon was puzzled; and was just thinking of becoming anxious about his patient, when she returned again to consciousness. Throwing her eyes wildly about the room, "What is this?" she asked, "where am I? Not Mr. Perigord's? Am I dying? O tell me am I dying? I won't die-I can't die yet!" And covering her face with her hands, she went into a strong fit of hysterical crying. "That is exactly what I wanted; that will do her more good than anything. She will fall asleep after this," whispered the surgeon to Lionel Roakes; and then added in a gentle tone, to his patient, calm, my dear lady, you have been very much frightened-you are not seriously hurt." "Be "O don't tell me so; I am-I know I am," she replied, "I'm dying-I'm dying-O doctor, keep me from dying. Where is my son? O dear, what am I saying?" "I assure you, my dear madam, that you need not alarm yourself in the least," said the surgeon ; motioning to Lionel Roakes not to come forward. "You will be well enough to return to your house, in an hour or two. You are in St. George's Hospital, where you were brought after the accident." C "St. George's Hospital! A beautiful country girl | preparing to take her departure; while the old woman and her mother- murmured Mrs. Roakes, in a was pouring out her gratitude to her two benefactors, in such terms as if she could not quite realize so much condescension. half-conscious tone of voice; and fell into a profound sleep. As soon as Mr. perceived this, he beckoned Mrs. Roakes's son to follow him out of the room; and there informed him that his mother had been fortunate. He did not think she had received so much as a sprain; the sleep into which she had fallen would completely restore her. He had better not remain in the room, as she might sleep for several hours; the nurse would be with her; and meanwhile, perhaps, he would like to witness the performance of a very difficult operation. "Thank ye-thank ye both!" she said; "to think of your coming to see a poor crittur the like o' me! The blessing of a poor old 'oman upon ye. God will reward ye. And oh! Him-my Heavenly Father!" she continued, raising her clasped hands, and subduing her voice, "He is good to me! Well, well; thank ye, thank ye." Thus she would have gone on uttering her gratitude beyond her strength, had not Mr. Perigord interrupted "Did I not hear your mother mention the name her with, " I am glad to see you so cheerful, Nanny. of Perigord?" continued Mr. "You did," replied Roakes; "she is acquainted with some people of that name in Hyde Park Gardens." "There is a clergyman of that name now with the old woman on whom I have to operate," observed Mr. Tell me, is there anything more I can do for you? "Nothin' for me, your reverence, nothin'," replied the old woman submissively. "I ave a sort o' feelin' like, as nothin more's to be done for me. But here's my darlin Nanny, your honour, as good a gal as any in Bribe worth, though 'tis I as says it as shouldn't,if I do die-she be quite strange in this Lunnun; when I be dead and gone,-no offence, your honour, "Eh? that's odd too!" Roakes ejaculated. "Let me see-em! he has an uncle-Rector of Bribe--might I be so bold as to beg your honour to tell her worth." a About an hour before these events happened, a solemn office had been celebrated in another room in the hospital. An old woman lay in that room, prey to acute suffering. She was a native of Bribeworth, and had for many years been known to, and nuch beloved by, Mrs. Sumner and her daughter. By the advice of the Rev. Mr. Perigord, the rector of the parish, she had, as a last resource, come up to London, and betaken herself to the skill of the eminent surgeon who happened to be at hand when Mrs. Roakes was brought in. Her only chance of recovery lay in a perilous operation; and in expectation of its being performed on the following day, she had requested Mr. Perigord, who, having just arrived in London on business, had called to see how his old parishioner was getting on, to give her what might be her last Communion. Whilst, then, Mrs. Roakes is lying in one apartment in a profound sleep, not undisturbed with starts and groans, and other indications of a troubled mind, Mrs. Millisant-for such is the old country woman's name is lying in the extremity of bodily suffering, sleepless, but very patient and tranquil. Her daughter, who had so narrowly escaped falling a victim to the false suspicion of Mrs. Roakes, and the lying and cunning of a pickpocket, was at the bedside; her right hand clasped in her mother's, on whose pale cheek she was impressing gentle kisses. Lucy Perigord, too deeply affected to be able to articulate a syllable or she would have said, "God bless you I will come to see you to-morrow," was how to get back to her father to Bribeworth?" "To be sure;—I'll see her there myself,” replied Mr. Perigord; and offering his arm to Lucy Perigord, who silently laid a sovereign upon the table as she took her leave, conducted her to her carriage. "What good, kind gentlefolk!" exclaimed the girl, as they left. "I'm so thankful. But, dear mother, don't talk so, you do make me quite tim'rous like. Oh! what should I do without you, mother!" And, moving quickly to the bed, the tears coursing one another down her fair cheeks, she knelt down by the bed-side, and passionately and tenderly embraced her suffering parent. "Doan't take on so, Nanny, that's a good gal," said the old woman, fondly. 66 You know God's will must be done. I ha'nt no will but his. We bean't to live for ever, Nanny: He knows best. If I had a wish, it would ha' been to a' seen my old man. If I do go, I should ha' liked to a' bid him good-bye like. He and I ha' lived together fifty year, come Michaelmas, and all that time we an't a' had scarce any words o' any consequence." 66 girl. "O mother, mother!" exclaimed the poor "You know, Nanny," continued her mother,you know what we did this morning;" (and as the old woman said these words she wept with joy ;)" and ever since that, Nanny, I be so calm and peaceful like, and happy, as nothing can be like it. Sumthin' must be a going to happen." You be goin' to get well, mother dear," said her daughter, smiling through her tears. "I doan't feel as though I wanted to, Nanny-that be the strange thing-except for you and father." At this moment the door slowly opened, and in trudged an old man in the Sunday dress of a labourer. The old woman had scarcely caught sight of him, when she closed her eyes; the tears might have been seen slowly starting from her closed lids, and her lips moved, as if in inward prayer. She was offering up a short thanksgiving for this unexpected blessing. | case, in the exercise of a wise and humane discretion Then, with both her arms outstretched from the bed- had told her on the morning of this day, that perhaps clothes, "My Johnny!" she exclaimed, "my Johnny, to-morrow the operation would be performed; inbe that you?" tending, in order to save the old woman the pain of anticipating it, to perform it on that very day; and they now entered, for the purpose of superintending her removal to the room in which the operations are performed. "It be, it be!" said the old man, hurrying to the bedside. "God be praised!" she said. "How did you get up, Johnny?-how did you get money?-did your master let you come?-how did you find us out? Dear old man!" and she embraced her aged husband with all the ardour and affection of a younger wife. "Why, you see," he replied, "I bethought me, on the evenings, of the pain missus was in, perhaps ; and I've never been so long away from you before, Nanny; and when I comed hoame, and put my bit o' sticks on to get a bit fire to heat the kettle, I felt as how as I oughtn't to be a-doin' that; and when I sot light to 'em, and the flame cracked and sparkled, just as if she had been a-lightin of 'em as was always used to, I were quite angered like. And then I sot down, and drank my cup o' tea, and I seed nothin' over the brim o' the cup but the walls;-no Nanny, with her brisk, cheerful face; I felt, I did, just as may be dead, and it was so unco and lonesome like; and I couldn't bear it no longer, and says I, 'I woan't,' says I, 'and that's all about it.' So I told measter; and says he, he be a kind man, measter be,―says he, 'To be sure, John, and here be five shillings towards your 'spenses.'" "Well, now, only think!" exclaimed the wife. "May God in heaven bless him!" exclaimed the daughter. But, as I were a-sayin'," continued the old man, "that warn't enow, you know; and as I couldn't for the life o' me ha' helped a-comin, I made bold to go to the cottage, where a poor man's never turned away, | you know, Nanny;—well, and they told me as Mrs. Sumner that's a blessed woman!-she hadn't come back, but the servant knowed as she'd a-left some money with Parson Perigord to be gi'ed for such like purposes. Well, and what d'ye think? Parson Perigord were gone to Lunnun, and so the coorate, ye know,-him as all the meetingers abuses so,-he happened to see me. Says he, 'What do you want, my good old friend?'-them was his words, Nanny, -says he, What do you want, my good old friend?' and so I tells him, and so he gi'es me a pound, he did,—a pound, whap down straight; and here I be!" "May God in heaven bless him!-may God for ever bless him!" old Nanny fervently prayed. "Some o' them great folk be wonderfu' good to the poor, to be sure!" exclaimed her aged spouse, in the fulness of his heart. "He gi'ed it so free like, and in such a delightsome manner. There,' says he, 'John,' clapping it into my hand, and 'oldin' my hand in hisn, as if I were his brother, there, John,' says he, I wish I had more to gi'e you. God bless you!"" "Do you think, ma'am, that you can bear the operation to-day-now?" inquired the operating surgeon, in the gentlest tone of voice to his patient. "To be sure I can," she replied. "We shall soon get it over," he continued; "it will not be so bad as you think. Here, take this glass of brandy; cheer up, we'll be as gentle as we possibly can." The kind and sympathizing tone and manner of the surgeon harmonized well with the feelings both of old Millisant and his wife Nanny; and they were comforted, and encouraged, and assured. "Oh, I doan't fear it at all, gentlemen. I be quite calm like. I doan't care for it nothin' hardly, now I've seen my maister," said the old woman. With the gentlest and most delicate care that the kindest consideration could suggest, she was removed from looks of anxious misgiving with which her husband and daughter gazed upon her, to the fearful apartment in which that science by which the sufferings of the body are alleviated, gazes, with a hundred eyes, upon the excruciating tortures the human body can endure; and the operation commenced. "Oh, Nanny, Nanny!" he cried, stroking the chilly cheeks of that body which would so shortly be buried out of his sight. "Speak, Nanny! why won't you speak? No, no, no, she can't! Come back to your old man. Oh, oh! what shall I do?" "Dear father," said his daughter, repressing, with a powerful effort, emotions that were tearing her "Oh, he's a brave gentleman!" exclaimed the heart asunder, "she's happier where she is; don't daughter. The doctors who had the charge of Nanny Millisant's wish her back!" "Daughter Nanny! - Nanny! that was her Mr. Perigord had the corpse conveyed to Bribeworth at his own expense, and there may its peaceful resting-place be seen in the burial garden of St. Mary's, in that parish, marked by a stone cross, on which is the following inscription : name," cried the old man, his whole frame convulsed, | the widowed and the orphan, nor ever turns a deaf and weeping like a child. "What shall I do with-ear to the prayer of the heart. out that woman? How can I live without her? Nine-and-forty years ha' we jogged on together. I never thought o' parting. Oh, what shall a lone man do? She did use to keep the cot so trim and clean; and when I comed home from work, there was everything ready, and her own dear smiling face lookin' so pleasant, and so happy, and so cheerful like,-oh, it were a pleasure to work for her! And she be gone!" and the old man covered his face with his hands, and rocked to and fro, weeping bitterly. "My father dear, let us go home, and give our lives to God, and try to look on to meeting her where she is! No parting there, father dear," said the bereaved' daughter, 'pointing heavenwards, and her beautiful countenance, more lovely in its sorrow, regarding her remaining parent with a look of solemn consolation. "I shall never be so good as she were, but I'll try to do what she did use to do for you, father," continued his daughter, caressing him. "But, Nanny, look'e here," said the old man, regarding her through his tears with a piteous look of misery; "she were my missus, and you be my daughter. Nine-and-forty year we ha' jogged on together. Oh, never to see her again! "Yes, father, you will, if you don't take on about it too much. Who has thus ordered it, father? Oh, let me try, to be a wife, and daughter, and servant, and all, to you!" said she, imploringly. N. M. APRIL XXX. MDCCCXL Mercy, Jesu!" THINGS IN GENERAL. "Ay, marry !-Now unmuzzle your wisdom." As you like it. THE wisdom I desire to unmuzzle, on the "Very true, my gal; but I never knowed what it present occasion, is not my own, dear Reader, were, this partin' for ever like,” he replied. but yours. In order to obtain my object, allow me to propose a few questions Do you ever feel perplexed, and confused, and brain-weary, with the rapid progress of things material in this country? Does your head ever grow giddy with the incessant clatter of manufactories, the whirl of railroads, the babble of parliamentary questions about food and clothing, taxation and locomotion, corn and cotton, the broad and the narrow gauge? When you see monster-trains, and halfpenny steamboats ; Building Societies and Mechanics' Institutes innumerable, do you not sometimes wonder how it is that things can possibly keep on at this rate; and how they will all end? Do you not feel inclined to say to this huge complex machine, the English social system,-" For heaven's sake stop a moment! Let me pause and examine you and myself. Let us see what you have made of me, and learn, if it be possible, whither you, O wondrous machine! are hastening? In vain you may implore. It will not stop; and, while you belong to the said machine, you must go on with it, or be knocked down by it ;-an alternative which, to some persons, appears quite an embarras du choix. "You can't Nanny, you can't! Nine-and-forty year we ha' lived in the same cot. I be old-you be young, Nanny-we bean't altogether companionable like. I love you very much, my daughter, God knows; but then, you know, you bean't she as is gone." Poor Nanny's feelings had been restrained with a power amounting to heroism up to this moment. She could now no longer restrain them; and in an agony of tears she cast herself on the bed by the peacefully sleeping form of her mother, and caressed and embraced her as though she had been still living. At the earnest persuasion of Mr. Perigord, the old man was persuaded to leave the room of death. The authorities of the hospital treated him with the greatest kindness and consideration; another apartment was placed at his disposal so long as he remained, where he received every attention. As soon as he had left the room, Nanny Millisant remained some time by the side of the corpse, giving free vent to those bitter emotions which were wholly irrepressible; and then casting herself on her face by the side of the pale form which her mother had once tenanted, she prayed earnestly for strength to enable her to submit to this dispensation with contentment, to afford help and consolation to her father, and to follow the instructions and tread in the footsteps of the mother of whom she had been bereaved. Much else she besought of that Being who never forsakes Have the above questions caused you to "unmuzzle your wisdom," dear Reader? I take for granted that this is the case, and that you have something to say upon the large question of "Things in General,"-something worth hearing. You have, I trust, fallen into the proper philosophic mood, and can see more than meets the eye, and hear more than enters into the ear, amid the din and spectacle around. Let us for a moment consider what is called "the spirit of the age." I do not mean Mr. Horne's book, which, like many a Peer, has a pompous title, and nothing to support it; but the spirit which pervades society in England at the present time. It is a spirit of incessant activity; and its vast working shows a great |