who ventured on matrimony; and Matthew; and Baynbridge, poisoned while on a mission at Rome; and Kempe, the son of a poor Kentish peasant; and Sir William Dolben-what, a noble and intellectual countenance is his! and Markham, George the Fourth's tutor; and others of less note, a long array, wound up by Wolsey, with a countenance indicative of overweening arrogance, and an eye all passion, impatience, and intolerance. It might be fancy, but they seemed to exercise a discordant influence on the scene. Methought, they looked down gravely and sternly from the canvas on the revellers below. It was, doubtless, imaginary, but to me their thoughtful, calm, and, in some cases, forbidding features, wore an air of reproach, as the flickering lights fell here and there on the pale worn visage of the habitual student, or the severe and gloomy liniments of the rigid puritan.

Their stewardship had expired; their rule was at an end; their censers were quenched; their crozier broken; and the moral they each and all seemed to whisper, was one always needful and often forgotten, that power, affluence, influence, patronage, form one great and solemn trust, faithfully to be exercised, and soon to pass away!

"Solemn and affecting pictures!" said my next neighbour, a portly gentleman, with an appearance of solidity literal as well as figurative. "Good for thirty thousand pounds," seemed stamped on his broad, florid, jolly visage. "Solemn and affecting pictures!" repeated he, observing my gaze riveted on a portrait opposite; "it's as good as a sermon to look at them! Indeed, it does me more good than many a one I'm compelled to listen to. It makes me think of that grand remark of Beethoven-'What puppets we are, and what bubbles we blow!""

"Beethoven!" said I musingly.

"The same; he always spoke to the purpose."

"Burke, perhaps, you mean, sir,- What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.

"Ah, exactly,-Burke to be sure, but one eminent writer expresses himself so like another, that you require a nice memory to give to each his due. Yes! as the great Lord Clarendon observes- We are here to-day and gone to-morrow!'"

I stared, for poor Sterne occurred to me.

"Those pictures," resumed my neighbour, "always do me a world of good. They make me feel solemn, and drive away frivolous thoughts. Try that venison-nicely kept-and done to a turn. Yes, the images of the departed induce reflection. But as Madame de Stael profoundly observed What's the odds, so long as you 're happy? Pointed, eh? Yes: I agree with you.-Man was made for mental, not table, pleasures. You've passed the pink champagne. What an oversight! It's excellent."

The dinner was sumptuous, and served up with every accessory which refined taste and lavish luxury could supply. The lighting up of the table would have satisfied even that royal Sybarite, George the Fourth, who hated the "dim obscure," and "could never eat by twilight." A cluster of wax-lights depended from a splendid candelabrum, which occupied the centre of the table. This ornament-massive -of highly burnished silver, and of considerable height, was, as a brief inscription on its plinth recorded, a present from her Majesty and the Prince Consort on their marriage, to their friend, the Archbishop of

York. A comment or two was made on its exquisite proportions and elaborate workmanship. The prelate, to whom the royal present was matter of pardonable pride, remarked, with quiet complacency,

"Yes; it is a memento of a very memorable event, and of a marriage singularly blest. The domestic happiness of George the Third and his Queen is now matter of history. An old man, who, like myself, can speak of it as an eye-witness, may be pardoned for thus alluding to it. Theirs was no state union: strong affection hallowed it throughout. The Queen's very closely resembles it. Who shall limit its influence on the national morals and the national happiness?

"

An elderly cavalry officer, if I remember rightly, Sir Charles Dalbiac, observed in how many traits of character the Queen resembled her royal grandfather; resembled him in her personal habits-in her love of early rising-her fondness for the country-her predilection for "blue water" and the "ocean breeze"-and more especially in her business habits and undeviating punctuality.

The archbishop listened to these remarks, but did not assent to them. Perhaps he was too practised a courtier to give an opinion openly on his Sovereign. Perhaps he deemed his position too dignified to permit him avowedly and unrestrainedly to pursue the subject. The conversation was ere long diverted into another channel, and he then said, sotto voce, to his next neighbour,

"There are not nearly so many points of resemblance between the Queen and her royal grandfather as the public are pleased to fancy. Her mind is of far greater grasp and power. Then, again, her Majesty has the virtue of firmness-firmness as contra-distinguished from that very vulgar, and, in a ruler, questionable and dangerous quality - obstinacy. Firmness in a female sovereign may be considered invaluable; a quality secondary in importance only to lenity."

The conversation branched off to the new Houses of Parliament, then to Westminster Abbey, and its dean, Dr. Wilberforce,* and one lady mentioned, with high praise, a recent speech of the dean at a meeting of one of our great societies, and said that his "voice called up a thousand agreeable associations," it so strikingly resembled that of his late father, the immortal Wilberforce.

The topic was one the archbishop at once adopted and pursued. "You scarcely know," said he, "how great a compliment you pay the dean, when you that say his voice resembles his father's. I recollect it well. For silvery sweetness, clearness, and persuasiveness, it was unrivalled. No account of him that I have ever met with-not excepting even that written by his sons-does him full justice. More should be said of his oratory, of his tones of winning melody, of his powers of conciliation, of his store of gentle entreaty. There were few whom he could not disarm. How he despatched the multifarious business which crowded on him, puzzled those even who knew him best. Always in a hurry-always behind time-always in infirm health-always over-fatigued-never wrote a letter in which he did not apologise for haste, interrupted leisure,' or 'want of timealways losing papers which he had carefully laid aside and fully intended to consult,'-and all the while heading a party small within the House, but most influential beyond it. He was a remarkable and honoured man."

Now Bishop of Oxford.

Something was said about his "mistakes."

"In a long life," said the archbishop, calmly, and somewhat sadly, "who can escape them? And when they did occur, how skilfully did he repair them? I remember once showing him some papers,-I mention the incident because it sketches the man,-which bore indirectly, but pertinently, upon the slave question. He instantly begged the loan of them. They were not my own, and I hesitated. He plied me with entreaties, and at length I gave way, but on one condition, that by a certain day and hour which I named, they should be replaced in my possession. Certainly; without fail. May I depend on you? Unquestionably' was the reply. The appointed period arrived, and at length Mr. Wilberforce. He was nearly an hour behind time, and had mislaid the papers! He was convinced they were not destroyed, but find them he could not.' I felt displeased and harassed, for I thought I had been trifled with; and my chagrin was deepened by the reflection, that these papers were indispensable to me as vouchers for certain statements I wished to make in another place. How could I supply the evidence they contained? How could I explain their absence? In every point of view my position was disagreeable. However, the carriage was at the door, and we drove down towards Parliament Street. On our way thither, such was the charm of his conversation, such the irresistible persuasion of his manner, that I forgot all my annoyance at his carelessness; not one particle of displeasure could I rally against him; and our drive ended with his obtaining from me a ready promise of a small living then vacant, which he was anxious to secure for some deserving protégé. Never did human being possess more thoroughly the power to conciliate and persuade! Living he had no equal, and dying he has left no suc

cessor."

Coffee was now announced; for the sederunt after dinner was judiciously short. Protracted devotion to the wine-flask there could be none. And wise was the arrangement. My next neighbour-the Clarendon student-obeyed the summons reluctantly, and left his port -"claret he abhorred"—with a somewhat audible sigh.

Looking round with a farewell glance

"Pleasant!" said he, "pleasant! and all in very good taste, but rather too decorous! I am looking," he continued, peering about earnestly at the walls, his eyes twinkling somewhat oddly, and his speech slightly, very slightly indistinct-let me add for the honour of the cloth that he was a layman-"I am looking for Archbishop Drummond. I can't find him. And yet to a certainty he hangs there. Ah! he was a model of an archbishop. I've heard my grandfather say, who duly paid his respects to his clerical head for a matter of fifteen years, that Archbishop Drummond's public days were days of the right sort. Then the dinner was held at the homely hour of two. A nice hot supper came on at eight. And after supper, when the ladies had retired, and the majority of his guests had departed, his grace used to withdraw, doff his dignified attire, put on a plain habit, and return to the company, by that time reduced to a chosen few. Taking the head of the table, he was wont to say in a sonorous voice I have to announce to ye, gentlemen, that his grace has retired; we shall see no more of the archbishop to-night, his grace has gone to bed.' Here he pushed the bottle. His grace has now laid his head upon his pillow. Another push. 'His grace dozes.' An

other. His grace is in a state of happy unconsciousness,' Another. Then, after a brief pause, his grace is as fast as the church. So circumstanced, we'll drink his good health and a dreamless night's rest to him.' Then followed a merry hour, when all formality was at an end. No such times now. They went out with Archbishop Drummond. Ah, he was a model of an archbishop, dear blessed man!'

"Not bad that," said an amused young dragoon, who had lost not one syllable of the stout gentleman's lament. "Now that explains," continued he with wicked gravity, "what has often puzzled me. At public dinners a toast is rarely omitted: "The bishop and clergy of the diocese,' followed by the glee, 'With a jolly full bottle.' I used to think this a strange sequence. Your story, sir, of Archbishop Drummond, suggests the pendant-might he not have introduced

it?"

"It is more than probable," said the stout gentleman complacently, in horrible unconsciousness of the quizzing he was undergoing, and of the roars of laughter which his gaucherie would originate at the next day's mess.

We returned to the drawing-room for coffee. Soon afterwards, watching his opportunity, our host silently and stealthily withdrew through a small door at the further end of the room, which led to his private apartments. But before he retired, there was a trait of feeling manifested which proved that age had had no power to chill the finer affections of the heart. Addressing an elderly clergyman who had recently come into the diocese, the prelate said,

"You were at Westminster, I think? at least so I inferred from a remark of my excellent chaplain, Mr. Dixon."

"Your grace's supposition is correct."

"Were you in college?

"No, my lord; I was not so fortunate." "Under Carey or Page?

"Under both."

"Ah, indeed! then you must have been contemporary with my sons. One I lost in the shell'-full of promise-the victim of his own kind-heartedness-a noble boy! He was returning home for the summer vacation, and gave up his outside seat to an invalid lady who could not travel with any comfort inside. His vis-à-vis was an old woman, a nurse, who had a bundle of clothes on her lap, which proved afterwards to have been worn by a party who had died of typhus fever. My boy complained the moment he entered the coach of the faint, close, stifling atmosphere within. And with reason. It was loaded with infection, and contained the seeds of death. He at once sickened and died. Poor fellow! he was singularly amiable and popular-popular in the best sense of the word-with the fags below him, and the seniors above him."

"I do not, I regret to say, recollect him."

"But I do," said the venerable prelate, slowly and tenderly ; "daily, and to this hour. Many years have passed since I lost him. But he is often present to me. I have never forgotten him. You have heard it said that oblivion quickly shrouds the departed.'

I

It was the remark of Mrs. —, a lady who sat within three of the archbishop; a sentiment which was controverted, but which the fair speaker very skilfully maintained.

never could understand this feeling-never could realize it. Do we ever wholly forget those whom we have deeply loved? I think not."

The tone of melancholy and deep feeling with which the aged prelate spoke was touching. He to whom his remarks were addressed was silent under their influence. The speaker looked up expecting a reply. Receiving none, he bent his eyes kindly on his humble guest, and slowly murmured, "I see you understand me."

Unexpected circumstances gave me the next morning an opportunity of going over the grounds. They were in a high state of cultivation; laid out with great taste, and well merited inspection.

I said as much to the gardener, a severe-looking, crusty old body, who attended me.

“Ah!—humph!-well! You'll not find many about this place who'll say 'amen' to that," was his reply.

"Why?"

"They look down on Bishopthorpe-their minds are elsewhere; his Grace takes but slight account of it himself; he's all for Nuneham !” "On what grounds?"

"Because," said my guide sturdily, "it be a place he have to leare."

"If it comes to that, honest friend,” said I, “we shall all have to leave-in turn-separately-some of us very unexpectedly, and all of us inevitably."

"And a blessed truth too!" exclaimed the old man; "and one that to the aged is far from unwelcome. Who would wish to linger on here digging, and delving, and watering, and pruning for ever? The Saints be praised there's none of that work, I take it, in the Great Garden above."

"There is rest there—”

As for

“None here,” he struck in quickly; "and scant praise. Nuneham, I wish with all my heart it was in the depths of the sea." "Why speak so angrily?

"We are but earthen vessels," was his reply: "the old Adam is strong, and the sap will rise. If his Grace didn't own Nuneham he would spend more of his time here—I should have more of the quality in my (!) gardens; my flowers would be more looked at; my turf would be more admired; and my budding more regarded. As it is, everything gives place to Nuneham. And why? Because Nuneham is an inheritance and this is a mere breath and body affair. Nuneham will Uh! I hate the mention of it." go down to his own flesh and blood! "So, then, there's discontent in the palace as well as in the cottage," said I with a sigh.

"Not exactly, sir; but there are always two lights in which to look at a picture, a fact, a flower, and everything else. Flesh and blood will rise. Praise is comely. We all like a scrap of laurel be it ever so

small!"

"Agreed."

"As for Nuneham-"

"Let it flourish," said I calmly; "it can't be in better hands.”

"But it might be better placed! At the bottom of the Ouse, for we are, sir,—we are—” instance?" suggested the old man bitterly:

"But earthen vessels' said I, "beyond all question;" and, moralizing, commenced my walk homewards.