"Where will your tongue wander next?" said Jerningham; "it is time for the theatre, allons !"

So they emptied their cups, and descended to the street.

Busy London! one need not be a Jacques to moralize in the crowded labyrinths. When man, proud man," wrapt in his little self, and fancying his being the world, and his schemes universal in their import, walks among thy unsympathizing multitudes, can he fail to see his individual nothing ness! What to the fevered million are your single cares; what to them whether you succeed or fail; whether you reach the goal, or fall headlong in the Hippodrome; and what trace does your passage through life leave, any more than the footsteps of the light- | est wind over the sea, or the sweetest music that ever died in echo over Alpine hills. None. Jerningham felt this, as the thousand furrowed faces flitted past him on his way; and he felt it sadly, for such knowledge is bitter to the affectionate yearning spirit of youth. But like many | distasteful things, it had a healthful meaning. It conveyed that leaf from the volume of experience, which teaches us to make our own happiness in ourselves, independently of time and place, and the world's approval and censure.

Armed with the manager's order, Michael Brent led Jerningham through the theatre to the stage-box, and there they quietly ensconced themselves in solitary state. Our hero thought he had never seen a more surly-looking audience; but Michael assured him these ideas were merely qualms of authorship in its blushing virginity, which would pass away and leave him impregnable for all future time, just as the widow receives her second proposal with profound tranquillity, while the maid is all sighs, and sobs, and simper.

The magic has passed away. Reality rules again. Another overture is condemned and executed, and the curtain rises again upon Jerningham's farce.

Trippingly dances the dialogue, replete with a crowd of rich conceits, and buoyant with the light merriment of a young brain. The audience titters, and two little boys from boardingschool scream out their approbation from the opposite box, but there is something wanting. Talent is there, but tact is not. It is evidently a first effort, and there are always enemies to fear. Your literary gods love not the intrusion of new stars into their firmament: for a moment the smiles flag, then comes a serious pause over the house, then a low buzz, a scraping of feet, a deadly hiss.

The premonitory hiss of a rattle-snake could not have startled Jerningham more. He rose in his seat, unconscious of all except a sense that judgment was passed, and condemnation at hand. Michael Brent looked ominously grave, the result hung upon a thread, when the action of the piece brought the new actor upon the stage.

His entrance involved the point of the whole farce. In the hands of the comic favourite who had discarded the part, his portion had been calculated upon as the safety valve that ensured success. Jerningham's disappointment and agitation were so excessive that he dared not cast a single glance upon the substitute. He shut his eyes, buried them in his hands, and listened.

And it came-not the expected serpent hiss, but a shout of applause-the scale was turned.

Nothing more quaint than the originality of the new man; and somehow the language flowed as naturally from his lips as if the authorship were his own. Nothing to stop the stream In spite, however, of his pre-occupation, his now. The boys in the opposite box are kicking attention was gradually attracted to the stage. with delight, so is the coalheaver in the galThe play was "Hamlet," that most metaphy-lery, so is the old lady in the pit, who sits with sical and yet most popular of Shakspere's the stone bott e in one hand and the cork in the imaginings. How complete the illusion, for the other ready to drink, and yet she cannot for joy: theatres could boast some actors then! How her hair is out of curl with laughter this time. sublime the distracted sorrow of the Prince of Denmark, the man of the world struck into weariness of its pleasures, the scholar unable to find solace for his great grief in the rich mines of learning! How touching the tenderness of Ophelia and the purity of her lover! What remorse in the royal mother, what gloom on the brow of the guilty King! Until at last, with the inevitable stride of a Grecian Destiny, the wrath of heaven descends on all, sweeping away even the innocent before its anger is appeased. And upon that most thrilling picture of human life the curtain falls.

The musicians appear again in the orchestra; the shop-boy enters at half-price; the coalheaver in the gallery recreates himself with a shrill whistle; and the old lady in the pit, who has wept her hair out of curl during the tragedy, now dries her eyes with a red silk handkerchief, and wets her lips furtively with the contents of a stone bottle.

The ordeal is over, the trying half hour is gone, and once more, amid good-humoured plaudits, falls the curtain. Jerningham is embracing Michael Brent with rapture, when a cry rises for the author, and before he can turn to flee, Michael seizes him by the collar, and places him before the audience in the front of the box. He bows before them, the boy-author, the pale-browed weaver of fancies, who has commenced the struggle of life with imagination for his only store, and a shout welcomes him to the arena where more athletic gladiators have fallen and died.

But the new actor is called too before the curtain; it is a double triumph. Passing from their box through the dusty defiles of scenery, gilt, and card-board, Jerningham met him as he left the stage. He took his hand, he began to thank him for his exertions, and to compliment him on the talent he had displayed, when lo! he pauses, they look in each other's faces, and,

as the actor clasps him in his arms, Jerningham reads through paint and disguise the features of his lost friend Revel.

"I told you we should win fame," said Jerningham in a voice that faltered with exquisite happiness; "but I dreamed not that in our separation we were carving it out for each other!"

THE SOCIETY OF NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

Calm upon the surface, but troubled in the depths, was the stream of life in Paris during the last months of 1815. Still restless minds were to be found whose dream was change, still fevered relics of many a long campaign believed that the great battle might perhaps have been fought without avail, and that a time might yet be in store when the soldier should wipe the rust from his sword and once more throw away the scabbard. Still fallen ministers and their no less prostrate satellites were labouring to undermine the new règime, the rapacious minions of the past were succeeded by other plunderers; the vicious ministrants to vice had been displaced by newer panders; there was everywhere innovation and therefore discontent. Thus many schemes were afloat with objects that differed in their final intent, and yet agreeing in the immediate means to be adopted. Widely distinct were the ultimate views which united Paul Didier and his companions, which lured Talleyrand and Fouché from their stealthy repose, which induced M. Decazes to look on with apparent ignorance or apathy, and which caused the young Duke, who was heir to the other Bourbon branch to link himself with plotters and adventurers, yet the policy of each was the policy of all; their first step was Revolution.

The bond which leagued together these dissimilar elements was called the Society of National Independence, and although Paul Didier was the ostensible leader of its councils, the real motive influence proceeded from a far higher source. It was to a Duke of the royal blood that Paul Didier resorted for his final instructions. Before that young prince, then fair in fame, then unsullied in the world's eye, and in the presence of Talleyrand, the subtle architect and destroyer of governments, Paul Didier now

sat, his eye as ever, wild with enthusiasm, his long white hair waving over his brow like an age-honoured banner over a castle height.

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Your mien is lit with the expectancy of victory," said the Duke to Didier; yet your words are grave and import a mournful spirit. Have you misgivings touching our cause?"

"Who has not misgivings when he throws the die upon which all is staked!" replied Didier.

"The hour of trial is that which should find us most calm," added Talleyrand, with characteristic imperturbation. He took a pinch of snuff, and submitted his gold box deferentially to the Duke.

"True, most true!" answered Didier sadly; “but I am old, and the sands have nearly run through the allotted space. You, Monseigneur, may lose and stake again, but this is my last hazard, my last venture on the wild sea of ambition; a warning voice whispers me that though triumph may bring the realization of all my hopes, failures will confirm more than all my fears. I can face death as I have braved it before, but there are others dearer to me than life who are less steeled to destiny; I cannot forget them."

"Nor will I," said the young Duke solemnly, and his countenance glowed with an expression of earnest sincerity which it had then not lost the power to wear. "Whether our cause succeed or triumph, whether you reach the high place marked out by me or not, the welfare of those you love shall be my care."

"My wife-my children!" said Didier, in a tone almost imploring.

"Such honour and preferment as my power can bestow shall be theirs," continued the Duke. "There are friendships superior to the vicissitudes of time, whose fulness is too complete to gather fresh aliment from success, whose roots are too deeply twined to be torn away by misfortune; such shall be mine to the family of my friend, Paul Didier.”

"Then I am satisfied," said the old man in a more cheerful tone; "and my mind dwells hopefully upon its appointed work. Adieu, Monseigneur, we shall meet as conquerors or never meet again: I shall place you on the throne of France or hide my defeat and disappointment in the grave. "Vive la Societé de l'Independance Nationale!" He kissed the hand of the Duke, bowed to Talleyrand, and hastened from their presence to set forth on his journey to Lyons.

It was the last night of December-the last night of one of the most eventful years that ever issued from the womb of Time. And though every facility had been provided to accelerate the progress of Didier, still the way was long, and the eternal avenues of trees and the chill wintry sky, so apathetically calm, formed a contrast to the vital import of his schemes that rather excited than soothed. The dynasties that had fallen, the thrones that had been reared only to crumble, the conflicting hopes and fears that had met like angry waves

and subsided like empty foam, all passed in review before his mind's eye as the hurried images of a distempered dream. Forth from that busy crowd of striving phantoms seemed to issue a voice, and on that voice were borne words of despondent meaning; and Didier's heart sickened as he felt that the interpretation was Vanity! all is Vanity! Too well he knew that in the world's eye, though successful ambition be a virtue, an impotent revolution is a

crime.

While his mind staggered on over the sea of Thought they reached fresh post-houses, and clattering hoofs were loud upon court-yards, and lights danced before him for a few moments, and horses were hustled into harness, and oaths flew about, and the master of the hostel would attempt to pay his respects at the carriagewindow-still retired into the darkest corner, and folded as it were in the web of his own reflections, Didier sat silently absorbed, and they hurried on again along the endless moonlit

avenues.

Then the form of his thoughts changed. Instead of wandering over the varied destinies of nations they settled down into a steady review of his own life. With a vivid actuality every portion of the past started into renewed existence. Once more he played around his mother's knee, and heard the music of her voice, and saw upon her face that sweet look of love that had smiled upon his childhood. Once more he felt the transition to youth and the dawning of worldly pleasures. Yet again he stood in the glory of early manhood, in the time of the smooth brow and the wreathed hair, and heard the whisper of his heart's mistress as she clung closer to his side to tell him that she was his. Other companions too who had plucked the flowers on their path as they loitered together, or toiled with him over the stern tasks of their career-they came too, though some were dead, and some were far away, and all were scattered, yet each appeared "in his habit as he lived," and moved in spectral silence through that still December night before the mental gaze of Didier.

A fearful revelation is it from the tablets of Memory, a dire opening of that book where the conscience has inscribed every action of the Past, when some maddening moment of danger or suspense shows us too truly that, although not subject to the will, all our good and evil deeds are indeed stored up in the mind which must hereafter be its own judge.

But no opening now for retreat. On, on hurries the wanderer, unscared by shadows, unwavering in purpose, though shaken, as mortal must be, by the whispering voice within. And fresh posthouses were passed, fresh lights flashed over the way, fresh horses bore him to the expected goal. And at last over all dawned the first grey light of morning.

While he leaned forth from the carriage window to breathe its cheering influence, and lave his brow in its cool misty beams, he was aware of a figure riding beside him along the paved

road. It was a horseman well mounted, yet lightly clad; and as Didier gazed, he thought it strange that he had not heard the approaching rattle of hoofs; and that, although the horseman was beside him spurring on at rapid speed, no sound accompanied his progress. He looked at his own postboy, but saw him sleepily urging on his team in evident ignorance of the horseman's presence. He made an effort to speak, but his voice died away in his throat, and he could neither utter a syllable, nor remove his rivetted gaze.*

Suddenly the stranger turned his face towards him, and Didier's eyeballs strained back the glance. Pale as he knew his own lineaments were, haggard as they had long been, and doubly so as he knew they must be then, the same white hair frosted with the snows of threescore winters, the same brow within whose grave-like furrows a wilderness of cares lay buried-all the features of the stranger were his own, and still the horseman rode beside him, and still upon Paul Didier glared calmly, placidly, the ominous likeness of himself. Strange to say, he felt no fear at a sight that might have made a brave spirit quail, but he watched the figure with a kind of breathless curiosity, as though a page had been opened before him of some unhallowed book, or a momentary illumination of the Soul had given it power to pierce into the future.

And the vision did not wane, but it changed. A confused mass of images followed. The figure beside him no longer mounted, seemed to walk pinioned and sad in the midst of a dread cavalcade. Silence suspended the very air, and the stillness of deep awe was on the countenances of the crowd. All was hushed-all, save the low promptings of the priest, as he strove to instil the hopes of heaven into the spirit parting from earth and a sight of horror succeeded: a raised scaffolding, and gleaming arms, and the figure, his second self, stood upon the verge of eternity! And a loud shriek rent the sky in tones that he knew too well; and then, again, silence reigned, through which came one sad sound alone-the low breathing of the priest. "Dies irær, dies illa, solvet cœlum in favilla!' And the blow had fallen; the soul had winged its flight, and Didier, ex

* Lest this incident should appear supernatural and overstrained, the reader's attention is invited to the following parallel circumstance in Goethe's autobiography:-"I now rode along the footpath towards Drusenheim, and here one of the most singular forebodings took possession of me. I saw, not with the eyes of the body, but with those of the mind, my own figure coming towards me on horseback, and on the same road, attired in a dress which I had never worn; it was pike-grey (hecht-grau) with somewhat of gold. As soon as I shook myself out of this dream the figure had entirely disappeared. It is strange, however, that eight years afterwards I found myself on the very road to pay one more visit to Frederica in the dress of which I had dreamed, and which I wore not from choice, but from accident!" p. 433.

hausted with agitation, sank back in his carriage. The morning star was waning in the light of day, as they passed the Barrière and entered Lyons.

CHAP. XXI.

THE TRAITOR.

While the conspirator Didier, worn with travel and forebodings of coming ill, lay down upon his couch to repose the unstrung powers of nature, the evil destiny forshadowed by his fears was already working out its task.

pose my friends-no, not my friends, but them as is on the list should larn that I peached— it's them I fears!"

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"Be tranquil, as virtue should be!" exclaimed the General. You shall be provided for; but the plan, mon brave, the plan of action for this little jeu-d'esprit, you have not told me the plan of your friends."

"No, no, not my friends," said the peasant, nervously again-not my friends: I owes 'em nothin', except-”

"Your aversion as a peaceable man," interposed Maringoué. "We will not quarrel about terms: the plan, you were about to say, was—'

me safe?"

Closeted with General Maringoué, the Com- "Then this is it," replied the informer, ceasmandant of the Department of Lyons was a dis- ing to attempt any further prevarication, so guised peasant. The low brow, and matted subtly was he led to the point by his questioner. hair of this man did not bespeak a heart acutely "The watchmen, you know, as is in the trick sensible of the feelings of shame, but there was and on duty, is to come to the Hotel de Ville, something in his flurried speech and lowering under pretence that they've took a prisoner, and eye that marked him for a traitor. Eager, how-to scrag the sentinel, and then-but you'll see ever, as he seemed to be for the ruin of those whose intents he revealed, his words were characterized by an uneasy reserve, as if he feared to say too much. There was an evident endea vour to ensure the destruction of his victims, but to spare others equally implicated, who happened to be for the time his friends. General Maringoué watched him with a piercing eye, that penetrated all while it app ared to observe nothing.

"And the chief movers of this plot?" said the General, "are-"

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Upon this list," replied the peasant, in the English language, which his questioner had also adopted.

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Humph!" ejaculated the General. "Ah! Rosset, paper painter ! He had better not come to the brush with me-Montain, doctor of medicine-the rogue! what does he with revolutions? Wants to study gunshot wounds, I suppose; scelerat, it his duty to cure, and not to kill Lavalette-phew! Jacquenet-diable! Roydvoleurs, here's a pot-pourri of iniquity! The two last soldiers-ah! warriors whom Napoleon called mes enfants,' and pulled by the ear. Can le petit Caporal be the object of their temerity?"

The animadversions of the General were conveyed in that low tone, half aloud and half soliloquizing, which calls for no reply. The informer remained silent, until Maringoué, rousing from his speculations, paced the apartment thoughtfully once or twice, and then re eated himself to proceed with the inquiry.

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"You know, doubtless, the time fixed for the execution of this pleasantry?" he continued. "The next night but one," answered the peasant uneasily. But, am I safe? You'll deal honestly with me, won't you, after I've told you all I knows? You'll see me all-right with the police, and the rest on 'em?"

"As safe as such honesty deserves," replied Maringoué, curling his moustache with somewhat of an ironical smile: " and the hour for the attack, my worthy friend?" what is the hour?"

"Midnight," said the former; "but sup

"I will see you secure," said Maringoué." "And then Rosset is to advance with the rest of the conspiraytors, and scrag the soldiers and the guard; and the cannon is to begin a-barkin' from the Place Louis le Grand, and the bells is to ring for the insurrection."

"Ah," said Maringoué, sinking back in his chair, and allowing his pent-up breath to escape in a long sigh, "c'est une affaire finie."

"And you'll not desart me?" asked the informer.

"On no account; nor must you leave us. You will stay here in Lyons, and when the crisis is past, come to me for your reward. Give me your passport."

"Here you are," replied the informer, fumbling it out from among a mass of greasy papers; and now I suppose I may go free?" he added, not without some apprehension touching this last demand.

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'You are at liberty to depart."

No sooner was the retreating step of the informer audible upon the lower stair than the General rang a small silver bell upon his table. A huissier entered.

"See that the man who just left ine is kept under strict, but secret surveillance," said the General-" hasten !"

The huissier made the usual sign of military obedience, and withdrew without a syllable. The General rang the silver bell again. His Secretary entered.

"Write orders to arrest every one named on that list."

The Secretary sat down to his task, and Maringoué proceeded to pen a hurried despatch to Paris.

As the peasant left the door of the General, and before the huissier was yet on his track, he felt a tap on the shoulder. He turned round hastily, and found himself in the presence of Paul Didier.

"I would speak with you," said the latter: follow me."

Passing through the town into a distant quar