the

to desire that it should be, and to feel that donald was examined as a witness upon if that is wanting, something is wrong. A the claim of her son. She was sixty-four great deal more might be said upon that years of age, and was treated with great and other topics, and perhaps we may indulgence. She was not tied down to the find occasion for saying it when other in- ordinary rules of evidence, but allowed to stances of “the romance of real life” ramble and expatiate just as she pleased : come to be introduced. But one point and indeed it would probably have been demands to be noticed at once. There is found impossible to get much out of her no romance possible where the actors are if she had been strictly dealt with upon mean, and the emotions of the story on ordinary principles for conducting an exa low level. Humble in estate the actors amination-in-chief. She shall tell the story may be, but they must not be cads. The of the courtship in her own words. There emotions may play around the commonest were apparently many obstacles to begiu interests of the human heart, but they with :must not be in themselves poor and paltry. Nor must they even be in too close juxta- pose to me. He had once named the subject to

“ He proposed to my aunt. He did not proposition with what is both or either. Nothing could, to us at least, make ro- and at length he made the proposal to my aunt."

me, and I refused all sorts of things of the kind, mance out of the Tichborne story, for instance. The mean odour of what is Then she is asked the question, “ He was in proper to the cad is too strong for the sen

love with your ladyship, I suppose ? sibilities to which Romance appeals. Thus, “ The world said so. I suppose it was so. It we need something more than surprising was an unlucky marriage for him, poor man. incident. The human figures must be, or Then there was another person who had a large seem, worthy of the god who ties the property, and he thought that not marrying the knot or who cuts it, and we must not have lady that he was wished to marry (and certainly a thunderstorm presented to us as that he was not wished to marry me), he should which spoils the beer, or makes Mrs. Cook avoid by a secret marriage a painful position to

himsels and this fortune going away from him; pull her apron over her eyes. We þave long been of opinion that the should never interfere with that arrangement of

and that by keeping my marriage a secret, it greater part of the real romance of actual his uucle's. That was given to me as the oblife goes unnoticed. This implies no dis-ject, and I had no right, and I had no reason, regard of the genius of Mr. Charles Reade; to doubt the word of the most honourable man

- for Mr. Reade cannot have his eyes I have ever known. I loved him. He had once everywhere, and do everything. But we named the subject to me and I had refused him. believe the best part of the poetry and I refused all sorts of things of the kind, and at humour which lurk in blue books, news- length he made the proposal to my aunt; dear papers, and such places, gets overlooked. me, men in love are very foolish." Nobody seems to find out the magic flower

“Lord Dundonald had been very ill, and his garden, which is romance; while every

life had been despaired of, and they sent his serone discovers the enormous gooseberry, in vant, Richard Carter, to me, to tell me he was which there is no romance at all, though dying, and also Captain Nathaniel Cochrane

came to say how very ill he was, and to ask if I there may be much that is remarkable.

would walk in front of the house in the square, We are not now about to wander in any that I might let him see me; which I did, and magic flower-garden, but only to say that he was lifted up to the window of his bed room, there is some real romance to be found in looking like a corpse. My heart was softened to a book which is virtually a blue book, in see that great man, the hero of a hundred fights. connection with the greatest viking of I cannot bear to be sitting here to vindicate the modern times — Lord Dundonald, to honour of such a man. It is too much not to whom they are, we believe, erecting a speak and tell my feelings; it would be impossimonument in Chili. The romance will ble. He was a glorions man. He was incapable speak for itself, and shall tell its own story. of deception such as is imputed to bim by the On other occasions, though we shall often world, I know. I dare not say by his son, but

still it is his son. go to blue-books real or virtual for our

Such an imputation upon facts, we shall not tie ourselves down to such a man! Such a god of a man!- a man

who could have ruled the world upon the sea ! them, and we beg the reader to accept the That I, his wife, should sit here to vindicate the title as representative rather than logically honour of such a man as that! O God have all-inclusive.

mercy upon me, and upon us ! It is too much;

I cannot stand it! That honoured name ! In the year 1861, the case of the Dun- that name for ages and for ages, that has ruug donald peerage was before the House of the world with his deeds ! – the hero of a hun. Lords, and the old Dowager Lady Dun-' dred fights! I have followed the fortunes of

pleased?

"When I arrived at the Queensberry Arms, he was very joyous; I suppose men in love are. He said, 'It is all right; it is all right,' and be seated himself at the table in the room; he sate himself down as any gentleman might, and he wrote away, and wrote something, and then he said, 'I want Dick;' he used to call his servant Dick."

that great man. I have stood upon the battle-j But do all Scotchmen "snap their deck; I have seen the men fall; I have raised fingers in that way" when they are them. I have fired a gun to save the life of a man for the honour of my husband, and would do it again. He was a glory to the nation in which he was born, and there is not a member of the family of Lord Dundonald that need not be proud of belonging to such a man as he was." In that lifting of the sick man up to the window, we can hardly help discerning a little of a lover's artifice, but we like the man none the less for it. He did not consciously aim at "startling effects: " but he could not help them. In reading Lady Dundonald's references to his "honour" and the like, we must, of course, bear in mind the well-known story of the stockjobbing charges made against him, his trial and conviction before the fiery Ellenborough, and his subsequent acquittal before the greater tribunal of his country, followed as it was by a restoration to all his

honours.

"After the paper was signed, and the servants gone away, he began to dance the Sailor's Hornhipe, a very unusual thing for him, and he put up his hands in that sort of way, and said, Now you are mine, Mouse, mine forever.' I said, I do not know, I have had no parson here, and no church. Is this the way you Oh yes,' he said, 'you marry in Scotland?' are mine, sure enough; you cannot get away; and then he said, I have no time to spare; I have no time to lose, for I must be back on the 10th to my uncle's marriage; he is going to be married, and he will be married on the 11th, or Lord Brougham may be pardoned for the 12th, I have not a moment's time to lose, some things, but there was one for which and therefore I must leave you as fast as I can. some of us will never forgive him his I have given all my instructions to Dick, and he Act for abolishing Gretna Green marriages. It was a great shame; but Lady Dundonald appears to have been very much worried by the sequel of her elopement; and there is something truly and deeply comic in her feeling so puzzled to know why she should be married so many times. When Dundonald persuades her to go off to Gretna Green with him she has a nice time of it, travelling all day and all night, with four horses, and all that. She says:

"I was very worn, and we went rolling on; and I slept, and so did he. At one part of the road-1 know it was not Gretna Green, but some little distance after Gretna Green - he

་

said, 'Well, thank God we are all right;' he used to call me a sort of pet name of his own, and he said, It is all right, Mouse: we are all right now. Moxham, mind you get a comfortable room for Lady Cochrane at the Queensberry Arms. We shall soon be there,' and he said nothing more."

Hamlet advised his mother not to let the king call her "his mouse," but there was no reason why Lady Dundonald should object to the name.

"I did not know why it was all right. He said, 'Mouse, we are over the border.' He said, Here we are over the border, now, and nothing but God can separate us.' I think he said at the same time, You are mine now, and you are mine for ever;' and he snapped his fingers in that way, as Scotchmen do when they are pleased.'

will bring you back as soon as he can.' He kissed me; he did not go in my room, and he went off as he came. I never saw him again until the 12th or the 13th, when we met in Bryanston Street, Portman Square."

There are points here upon which no comsuch as gentle hearts will make for themment is necessary or permissible, except selves. But there is unconscious humour in the lady's remark that it was "a very unusual thing " for Dundonald to dance the Sailor's Hornpipe. How often did he do it?

I

"I retired to my room; I was very glad to do 80. I wanted very much to have had a bath there; I was very tired. The old lady lighted went up into the bedroom. I asked her if I me upstairs; she seemed a cross old thing, and might have a bath, and she said, No, you cannot have a bath; there are no baths at the Queensberry Arms.' I said, Can you give me some soft water!' She said, 'No; you cannot have any soft water.'

"She had had a great wash-up. It was a very old sort of dialect that she spoke; it was very odd Scotch. I had never heard Scotch before, and it was very broad Scotch, and extremely difficult to understand. She said they had no soft water. I said, What kind of a place do you call this?' I was but young, you know, and perhaps a little pert, and I said, 'What kind of place do you call this, where you have no soft water for people, nor a bath?' She said, It is the Queensberry Arms, at Annan.''

Some relatives of the lady insisted upon

the marriage being repeated in the which carries us back to almost antediluSouth:vian things:

"They were old-fashioned, excellent people, and they wished to have this marriage made in England; and it was made, and I was married by licence by the Rev. Thomas Knox, of Tunbridge Town. He was the chaplain of my cousin, Mr. Simpson, and held the living of Shipbourne from his giving." She goes on

"When he was released from the King's Bench Prison he went abroad, and I went with him. When he got out of the King's Bench he went away. I took him down to Dover, and we crossed from Dover to Boulogne in an open boat, because my husband had been so ill and so distressed at things which, God knows, he never merited, that I said, Come away, come out;' and I got him to come down to Dover, and went "Dundonald said Marry her! I would across with him, because we could not stay. I marry her in a hundred churches. I would could not bear him to remain. We went across marry her all over the world; but there is no in an open boat, a boat called the Tom Paine.' marriage, my dear, so binding as the marriage I remember that boat; I remember being on the which has been already executed in Scotland. deck of that vessel with my husband, who was She was from that hour my lawful wife. How-distracted and wretched. I remember sleeping ever, to give you satisfaction, I am ready to the whole night upon the open deck of that boat. marry her in every church in London.' He We went over to Boulogne.' said, I would do it a thousand times.'"'

And here the narrative, considered

Then follow these questions and an- from the romantic point of view, suffers au

swers:

"I believe there was a subsequent marriage even after that?"

"Yes; I was married again; in short, there was no end of marrying me."

"When was your ladyship married the third

time?"

interruption. But Dundonald's career is more to our immediate purpose, we find was nearly all of it interesting; and, what that, very late in life, the element of poetry, so far as it existed in the emotions of the persons concerned, was as well defined as ever. Here are a few more touches, the first from the Lady's evidence, and others from letters of Lord

"I was married the third time when he came home from Brazil; I was married again." "Where was your ladyship married the third | Dundonald's appended to it : time?"

"I was married the third time in Edinburgh; I was so tired of being married."

66

According to the forms of the Scotch Church?"

66

Yes; then I was asked in church, and domiciled. In short, I was bothered all to pieces with the marrying; I was asked in church. I was married at Mr. Strachan, the lawyer's, and married by Parson Ritchie; there was no marriage at all, he just joined the hands, Parson Ritchie did, and said something or other, and ⚫ God bless you,' and that was the marriage in Scotland. It was not a bit more like a marriage than the Annan marriage. I was asked on the banns and domiciliated and everything. There was no end of marrying me. so tired of being married... I was bothered to pieces with the marrying."

"My husband was a Scotchman, and proud of being a Scotchman; he would not have given up that birth of his for a crown in heaven. He gloried in being a Scotchman; he said it was the pride of his life, and he used after his dinner, when he was drinking his wine, and so on, to bring in something about Scotland, his dear Scotland, the days of his youth-the happy days with his grandmother. It is a sad case; such sad reminiscences; such a noble man!.

one.

а

to us.

And once more:

He rushed at his goal, flinging him“ Dear mama is getting much better, and is self headlong into the race; and it is true

he did not succeed — what man ever sucable to take long walks, which will soon re-es- ceeds in bringing down the conditions of tablish her health completely.'

a heavenly life either to May Fair or BethIt would be an affront, both to good nal Green? - but he did his best, with feeling, and good literary taste, to make lavish expenditure of all that he had and rhetorical capital out of things which so was, and has left us his bright but broken completely as these tell their own story. essay at existence for our instruction and But in some cases, especially those to be reproof - a thing which few of us can imgathered from newspapers, comment, crit- itate, which is indeed an interruption of icism, and minute speculation will be re- the peaceful monotony which makes life quired to make the latent romance visible, possible, but which yet stimulates the listor sufficiently clear. And yet the stories lessness of that practicable quiet as nothare more startling and more pathetic than ing else could do half so well. this of Lord and Lady Dundonald.

The book in which this brief life is epiA. HUNTER.

tomized — we cannot say even recorded, for much that goes to make up the attraction of a sympathetic record is left out

is neither eloquent nor very wise. It is a From Blackwood's Magazine.

basket of fragments; and even the frag. EDWARD DENISON.

ments contain a great many crudities,

scraps of immature reflection and hasty An exceptional life is generally a short opinion. We can see but dimly, through one; when inen live long, not only do they the veil of a phraseology which has becoine tame down out of those ardours and en

common to a class, the individual features thusiasıns which lead to everything that is of the man. No attempt has been made, strange, eccentric, and Quixotic, but the indeed, to convey these individual features routine of existence pulls them softly down His friends have judged, perhaps from their pedestals

, takes the glory out wisely, that the life which had little more of the ideals they have cherished, and than promise to make it interesting to reconciles them to the ordinary course of mankind, did not require nor call for fuller the world. The young man who is per: exposition. A hope, an earnest endeavour, fectly content with the arrangements of

a warm and vigorous impulse — this is society round him, who has no desire to what we find in the book. The young overturn anything or mend anything, is a hero was the son of the Bishop of Salissafe man, likely to live all his day3 out, bury, and thus only nephew of the late and provident of comfort in the long level Speaker; he was educated at Eton and which he sees before him. Many, it is Oxford : and he lived, as we have said, true, who have been enthusiastic in their about thirty years ; travelled much, worked youth, calm down with the touch of years, much, fell iil and died; the briefest unand become content with everything, as eventful history — just enough to make soon as they themselves are established in happy and to break the hearts of some comfort; but it is the young generally few individuals, to move more lightly a who make those beautiful, impossible at- larger sympathetic circle, but not to affect tempts for the good of their fellow-men, at the world. Yet there is something to which we wonder and admire, with a half- touch the world in the brief record. shame of our own egotism which prevents Among his travels Edward Denison made us from following their example, and a one which few men of his class and genhalf-pride in our superior wisdom which erations have made. He went not to the keeps us from trying it. Such an excep- Himalayas, or the Caucasus, or the Mattertional existence was that of Edward Den- horn, but to the East End of London ; ison.* He lived but thirty years in this and finding there a mass of his fellowworld; and therefore nature, prescient of creatures as hopeless as savages, and less the near ending, felt no necessity upon her happy, with no man caring for their souls, to “stay,” but let him run his course, as but only giving such a spasmodic regard a runner in a short race is justified in do- to their bodies as injured body and soul ing, with an expenditure of force which

together — this

young gentleman went would be impossible were the effort a long and lived among them in modest silence,

• Letters and other Writings of the late Edward making no commotion, organizing no Denison, M.P. for Newark; edited by Sir Baldwin society, but doing what one true man Leighton, Bart. London: Bentley & Son. could do to mend matters, and qualifying