During the delivery of the greater portion of this comment, E.'s manner had been marked by a gravity which contrasted strongly with the vivacity he had displayed at our previous interview. Now and then, at the recurrence of an image moulded in poetic grace, or in recounting the Poet's claims to praise, his eye brightened and his energy revived. His dissertation, void alike of effort reflective or enunciatory, flowed like a tranquil current of articulate thought-its progress stayed for a moment at unfrequent intervals, and again calmly resuming its onward course, as a stream which petty obstacles at times impede, is soon impelled by accumulating waters rearward. As soon as E. had fairly ended, I recalled him to his former self by preparing for departure; and starting at once into jocularity, he said,

"Now if I were of that unenviable temperament which glorious Will has sketched by simply hinting at, that is, were I in danger of 'creeping into the jaundice by being peevish,' I'd vent a spleen-simoom at being thus ensnared by your quiescence into that besetting sin of age, prolixity. My plea is that of the disordered Lear, I am an old man; pray you now forget and forgive.' I protest against the Talmud's libel on the softer sex, in asserting that of ten measures

of garrulity awarded to our race, the women took nine! It does not break my heart, this consciousness of culpability, but it reminds me of the wail of Ithocles, in the Broken Heart of Ford

"I now repent it: this now is now too late!"

Shade of the Poet! regard benignly a parody propped upon certitude and uttered in contrition

Our tongues elongate as our days decline.

"Before you leave, hear, at least, my request, that you will defer till morning your return in future. Express, if it please you, the astonishment of the lawyer, at the absence of 'cauld-pausing Caution ;' but I ken more of you than you may suppose.-Are you not retained in the case of S― v. Wainwright?” I had that honor, and acknowledged it.

"Eh bien: the plaintiff and I have been these fourteen years exchanging draughts-he is my winemerchant—and the good man reposes confidence in me. On the morning in which my corns so narrowly escaped crushing by your retrogressive movement from the bookseller's window, I was on a mission to the merchant's; and, while there, his solicitor entered to communicate an opinion of Mr. C. I ascertained the

identity of this Mr. C. with the carnal cataclysm that had nearly overwhelmed me at the bookshop; and when the solicitor retired, S. related the particulars of his suit, as well as certain professional incidents to your personal credit: inter alia, the defence

I had long been on terms of intimacy with the good-hearted vintner, whom to know was to esteem; and remembering his loquacity, and apprehensive of exaggerated commendation, I felt a slight effeminate tinge getting the better of my professional sang froid —a mark of modesty so monstrous, that the old man reined-up abruptly, and exclaimed, astounded,

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"Eh, sirs? a blush on the face of a lawyer! I vow, then, the tribe is basely slandered and maligned: the calumny of the Talmud, after this, sinks into a "soft impeachment;" and in dilating upon the qualities essential to the appreciation of Wordsworth, it seems I have not been feeling for a pulse in the dead!"

I bore with all the fortitude I could summon, the raillery excited by the display of a constitutional infirmity which I had hardly mastered at that time, but which, fortunately, does not now interfere with the imperturbable nonchalance indispensable (or nearly so) to the legal profession, wherein reputation is not a little favored by the preservation of a wintry ex

terior. Women must have strange tastes or the compassion of angels (I attribute it religiously to the last alternative,) to wed with lawyers of first-rate, uncoguid physiognomical advantages (professional), cased, as they appear to be, in a covering of that complexion which seems made of soiled skins,-a hue bloodless, but less like the untrodden snow on Linden, than that in a thoroughfare, which is in process of dissolution and dingy.

Previously to leaving Ivy Lodge on this occasion, I was bent upon obtaining information of the visits there of the child mentioned in E.'s letter; and to avoid returning unenlightened, I was constrained to prosecute an indirect examination, which elicited for the maiden the ready Elder's affectionate praises, and for me, sufficient data whereupon to determine my next appearance at the Lodge. E.'s fondness and fervour for his godchild was of that order of love which, according to Scott, has in it "less of earth than heaven;" and the glowing old man's tone was so thankful for this treasure of his heart, that, as he indulged in its expression, his feelings deepened and his voice grew tremulous-imparting to his language and his look an effect of indescribable pathos.

"God's name be blessed!" said E. looking upwards with patriarchal grace, "His mercy be praised for this one gift, that having endowed me with the heart to love, I am not left in the wide world to mourn in loneliness that unencountered one, for whom our Human Nature yearns;-in whose absence, if deeply felt, the craving of Solicitude knows no appeasing, but supplicates the boon, with plaint fathomless as the source of life and holy as the hope of heaven! Of the bosom's better instincts, the least despoiled of its divine simplicity is, methinks, the pure longing to lavish our heart's wealth upon a child; and even where, as here, the strong paternal bond is wanting, the great Father of love doth sometimes implant a principle exotic, whose tendrils intertwine and wreathe around their object with such tenacity and tenderness, that stronger I can hardly conceive to originate in man the Parent. Once-lang syne-I might have cherished the hope of closer ties, and did cherish; and e'en now, encompassed by the goodness of an overflowing Hand, this scarce-resigned heart is apt to repine at what the Father willed not; and stirs to re-invest with the irksome mantle of mortality a spirit which-thanks to the Finisher of our Faith-it is my confidence as that I live, is enrolled among that