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earthly calamity. He raised almost a shriek of despair, as he threw himself on the pale hand of the corpse, wet it with tears, devoured it with kisses, and played for a short time the part of a distracted person. At length, on the repeated expostulation of all present, he suffered himself to be again conducted to another apartment, the surgeon following, anxious to give such sad consolation as the case admitted of.

He said, "from the symptoms, that if life had been spared, reason would, in all probability, never have returned. In such a case, sir, the most affectionate relation must own, that death, in comparison to life, is a mercy."

"Mercy ?" answered Tyrrel; "but why, then, is it denied to me?—I know -I know!-My life is spared till I revenge her."

He started from his seat, and rushed eagerly down stairs. But, as he was about to rush from the door of the inn, he was stopped by Touchwood, who had just alighted from his carriage, with an air of stern anxiety imprinted on his features, very different from their usual expression. "Whither would ye? Whither would ye?" he said, laying hold of Tyrrel, and stopping him by force.

"For revenge for revenge!" said Tyrrel. "Give way, I charge you on your peril!"

"Vengeance belongs to God," replied the old man, "and his bolt has already fallen. This way-this way," he continued, dragging Tyrrel into the house. "Know," he said, so soon as he had led or forced him into a chamber, "that Mowbray, of St. Ronan's, has met Bulmer within this half-hour, and has killed him on the spot."

"Killed whom ?" answered the bewil dered Tyrrel.

"Valentine Bulmer, the titular Earl of Etherington."

"You bring tidings of death to the house of death," answered Tyrrel; " and there is nothing in this world left that I should live for."

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There remains little more to be told. Mr. Touchwood is still alive, forming plans which have no object, and accumulating a fortune, for which he has rently no heir. The old man had endeavoured to fix this character, as well as his general patronage, upon Tyrrel; but the attempt only determined the latter to leave the country; nor has he since been heard of, although the title and estates of Etherington lie vacant for his acceptance. It is the opinion of many, that he has entered into a Moravian mis

sion, for the use of which he had previously drawn considerable sums.

Mowbray enters the army, and reforms from the early follies which disfigured his early life. He re-purchases the property he had feued out for the new hotel, lodging-houses, &c., and sends orders for the demolition of the whole; nor would he permit the existence of any house of entertainment on his estate, except that kept by Mrs. Meg Dods.

SPIRIT OF THE

Public Journals.

PANACEAS FOR POVERTY.

"I like not the humour of bread and cheese." SHAKSPEARE.

FROM the days of Job, downwards, COMFORTERS (to me) have always seemed the most impertinent set of people upon earth. For you may see, nine times in ten, that they actually gratify themselves in what they call "consoling" their neighbours; and go away in an improved satisfaction with their own condition, after philosophizing for an hour and a half upon the disadvantages of yours.

There are several different families of these benevolent characters abroad; and each set rubs sore places in a manner peculiar to itself.

First and foremost, there are those who go, in detail, through the history of your calamity, shewing (as the case may be) either how completely you have been outwitted, or how exceedingly ill or absurdly you have conducted yourself and so leave you with "their good wishes," and an invitation to "come and dine, when your troubles are over."

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Next, there are those, a set, I think, still more intolerable, who press the necessity of your resolving immediately upon something;" and forthwith declare in favour of that particular measure, which, of all the pis allers of your estate is the most perfectly detestable.

Thirdly come the "whoreson caterpillars," who are what people call " well to do" in the world; and especially those who have become so (as they believe) by their own good conduct. These are very particularly vile dogs indeed! I recollect one such (he was an opulent cheesemonger,) who had been porter in the same shop which he afterwards kept, and had come to town, as he used to boast, without cash enough to buy a night's lodging on his arrival.

This man had neither love nor pity for any human being. He met every complaint of distress with a history of his own fortunes. No living creature, as he took it, could reasonably be poor, so long as there were birch brooms or watering-pots in the world. He would tell those who asked for work, that " idleness was the root of all evil;" prove to people "that a penny was the seed of a guinea," who were without a farthing in the world; and argue all day, with a man who had nothing, to shew that "out of a little, a little might be put by."

Fourthly, and in the rear, march those most provoking ruffians of all, who uphold the prudence of always "putting the best face" (as they term it) upon an affair. And these will cure your broken leg by setting it off against somebody else's hump back, and so soundly demonstrate that you have nothing to complain of; or admit, perhaps, (for the sake of variety) the fact that you are naked; and proceed to devise stratagems how you shall be contented to remain so.

And it is amazing what a number of (mad upon that particular point,) but otherwise reasonable and respectable persons, have amused themselves by proving, that The Poor have an enviable condition. The poor "Poor!" They seem really to have been set up as a sort of target for ingenuity to try its hand upon; and, from Papin, the Bone Digester, down to Cobbett, the Bone Grubber, from Wesley, who made cheap physic, and added to every prescription "a quart of cold water," to Hunt who sells roasted wheat (vice coffee) five hundred per cent above its cost an absolute army of projectors, and old women has, from time to time, been popping at them. High among these philosophers, indeed I might almost say at the head of them, stands the author of a tract called, "A Way to save Wealth;" which was published (I think) about the year 1640, to shew how a man might thrive upon an allowance of TWO-PENCE per day.

The observations prefatory to the promulgation of this inestimable secret, are worthy of everybody's-that is, every poor body's attention.

First, the writer touches, generally, upon the advantage of" thin, spare diet; -exposing how all beyond is "mere pitiable luxury ;"-enumerating the diseases consequent upon high living; and pointing out the criminal acts and passions to which it leads;-evidently demonstrating, indeed, to the meanest capacity, that no man can possibly cat goose, and go to Heaven.

Shortly after, he takes the question up

upon a broader ground; and examines it as one of mere wordly policy, and of mere convenience." The man who eats flesh, has need of other things (vegetables) to eat with it; but that necessity is not felt by him who eats vegeables only."—If Leadenhall market could stand against that, I am mistaken.

The recipes for cheap dishes will no doubt (when known,) come into general practice; so they shall be given in the Saver of Wealth's own words. Here is one-(probably) for a Christmas dinner. "Take two spoonfuls of oatmeal; put it into two quarts of cold water, then stir it over the fire until it boils, and put in a little salt and an onion. And this," continues our Economist,-"this does not cost above a farthing; and is a noble, exhilarating meal!"-For drink, he afterwards recommends the same dish, (unboiled ;)—and no form of regimen, it must be admitted, can be more simple, or convenient.

Now this man was, certainly, (as the phrase is,) "something like" a projector in his way. And it seems probable that he met with encouragement; for, passing the necessities, he goes on to treat upon the elegancies of life.

Take his recipe for instance, next,"For dressing (cleaning a hat.")

"Smear a little soap on the places of your hat which are felthy, and rub it with some hot water and a hard brush. Then scrape it with the back of a knife, what felth sticks; and it will bring both grease and soap out."-The book of this author is scarce ;-I suspect the hatters bought it up to prevent this secret from being

known.

Only one more recipe and really it is one worthy to be written in letters of gold;-worthy to stand beside that neverto-be-forgotten suggestion of Mrs. Rundell's (she who now in the kitchen of the gods roasts!-that "roasts," in a proper sense, not is roasted,)—her immortal direction to prevent the creaking of a door,- "Rub a bit of soap on the hinges !"This it is.

"To make your teeth white."

"Take a little brick dust on a towel, and rub them."-The mechanical action, (the reader sees) not the chemical; but potent notwithstanding.

But Mrs. Rundell deserves better than to be quoted, in aid, on an occasion like this; nay, merits herself to take rank, and high rank, among our public benefactors. Marry, I say, that the thing is so, and shall be so: for, even amidst all the press and crowd of her moral and culinary precepts, even while she stands already, as a man may say, "in double

trust," teaching us good life in one page, and good living in another; here, holding up her ladle against "excessive luxury,' such as "Essence of Ham"-(praised be her thick duodecimo, but for which the world had never known that there was such a perfume;) and, presently, pointing out the importance, and weeping over the rarity of such "creature comforts" as strong coffee, and smooth melted butter; -ever and anon, even amid all these complicated interests, the kind lady finds room to edge in a thought or two about the poor.

Pour echantillon.

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And again she goes on." Did the cook really enter into this, (the love of her fellow creatures; she would never wash away as useless the peas, or groats, of which soup, or gruel, have been made; -broken potatoes;-the outer leaves of a lettuce ;-the necks and feet of fowls,' &c.; "which make a delicious meat soup, especially for the sick."—(Sure, people would be falling sick, on purpose to eat it!)

The sick soup essay concluded with a farther direction to the cook, not to take the fat off the broth," as the poor like it, and are nourished by it!" and with a calculation which, if we know any thing of the mathematics, might make Demoivre himself look to his laurels ;- "Ten gallons of this soup," concludes Mrs. R., "from ten houses, would be a hundred gallons; and that, divided amongst forty families, would be two gallons and a half to each family."

Tam Marti quam Mercurio! And done with chalk upon a milk tally, ten to one else!-Tam Cocker quam Kitchener! And this lady is dead! It almost makes us waver in our faith!—

Turn sour ye casks of table beer,
Ye steaks, forget to fry;
Why is it you are let stay here,

And Mrs. Rundell die?

But whims, (if they happen to take hold at all,) take the strongest hold com. monly upon strong understandings.

Count Rumford, though an ingenious man, had a touch of this bon chere a peu d'argent disease; and his Essays afford some pleasant illustrations of the slashing style in which men construct theories,

when the practice is to fall upon their neighbours.

After exhausting himself upon the smoky chimnies of the world, the Count strips to the next of its nuisances,-the beggars.

He was to feed the poor; (encore the Poor!) and the point was, of course, how to feed them at the cheapest rate.

"Water," then, he begins-(the cunning rogue!)" Water, I am inclined to suspect, acts a much more important part in nutrition, than has been generally supposed." This was a good active hobby to start upon; and, truly, his Countship, in the sequel, does outride all the field.

First, he sets out an admirable table, at which he dines TWELVE HUNDRED persons, all expenses included, for the very reasonable cost of one pound fifteen shillings English.

But this (which was three dinners for a penny) was nothing; and, in a trice, the Count, going on with his reductions, brings down the meal for twelve hundred, to one pound seven shillings. And, here, he beats our Saver to Wealth (the contractor at two-pence a day) hollow; because, with his dinner found for a farthing, a man must be an example of debauchery a mere rascal-to think of getting through such a sum as two-pence a day; out of which, indeed, he might well put by a provision for himself and his wife, in old age; and fortunes for two or three of his younger children.

The Count's running commentary upon these evolutions, too, is a chef d'œuvre in the art of reasoning. At one time, it seems, he dieted his flock, partly upon bread begged publicly in charity, and partly upon meat which was the remnant of the markets. Even out of evil the wise man shall bring good. The charity bread was found extremely dry and hard; "but, therefore," says the Count, "we found it answer better than any other; because it made mastication necessary, and so prolonged the enjoyment of eating." As for the meat, he soon finds that an article quite unnecessary, and actually omits it altogether in the people's soup, without the fact being discovered!

But the crowning feature of all, (and there I leave Count Rumford,) is the experiment which he makes in eating (to be quite certain) upon himself; arguing upon the nutritious and stomach-satisfying qualities of a particular "cheap" dish, he puts the thing to issue-thus:

"I took my coffee and cream, with my dry toast, one morning" (hour not given) at breakfast, and ate nothing

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between that and four o'clock. I then ate," (the particular dish,) I believe, however, it was a three farthing one, "and found myself perfectly refreshed." And so the Count finishes his dissertation upon food, by declaring the Chinese! to be the best cooks in the world.

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Now, I confess that (at first sight) there would seem to be something accomplished here. No doubt, if our labourers would eat farthing dinners, and get rid of that villanous propensity which they have to beaf-steaks, their savings," and consequent acquisition of property, would be immense. But does the Count not perceive, and did it never strike his coadjutors, that, if this system were acted upon, all the poor would become rich? when they would be an incomparably greater nuisance than they are in their present condition. I grant the existing evil, but do not let us exchange it for a greater. The question is a difficult one, but there be minds that can cope with it. Such a turmoil as to what the poor shall eat! I say, there are plenty of them-let them eat one another.

People must not be startled by the apparent novelty of this plan;-those who can swallow Count Rumford's dinners, may, I am sure, swallow any thing. I have examined the scheme, which propose narrowly, and (prejudice apart) can see no possible objection to it. It is well known, that rats and mice take the same mode which I hint at, to thin their superabundant population; and what are the poor, but mice in the cheese of society? Let the public listen only to this suggestion, and they will find that it ends all difficulty at once. I grant that there might be some who would be ravencus, at first, upon their new diet;* especially any who had been living upon Mrs. Rundell's soup; but that is an evil which would correct itself; because, so admirably operative and perfect is the principle, the mouths would diminish in exact proportion with the meat. Upon my system, (and, I repeat, I can see no objection to it), the poor might go on pleasantly, reducing their numbers at their leisure, until one individual only, in a state of necessity, should be left; and if it were worth while to go on to niceties, I could provide even for him under my arrangement, by having him taught to jump down his own throat, like the clown, in "Harlequin Conjurer." Certain it is, we hear, on every side, that, if the poor go on increasing, they will soon eat up the rich; and, surely, if any

* Compere Matthieu, I think, makes this remark somewhere, in a general defence of cannibalism. But my project does not go so far.

body is to be eaten by them, it ought, in fairness, to be themselves. And, moreover, as it is shrewdly suspected that too inany of them are already eaten up with laziness, why, hang it, if they are to be eaten at all, let them be eaten to some purpose. Blackwood's Magazine.

CASTLE BUILDERS.

His body was a

(Concluded from our last Mirror.) CERTAIN great geniuses have been notorious for castle-building. Fontenelle, the centenarian, was so accustomed to indulge in erecting these airy fabrics, that he may be said, fairly enough, to have lived as much out of the world as in it, and by this means there can be no doubt he prolonged his life. His perfect indifference to all those matters that commonly raise a great interest among mankind in general, made his temper even and placid, and his love of castle-building contributed to his long good health. Deaths, marriages, earthquakes, murders, calamities of all kinds, scarcely affected him at all. He built castles by day and by night, in society and out of it. machine with a moving power, and went through its actions mechanically; but his mind was generally in some region far remote from the situation it occupied. He got at one time among the stars, found them peopled, and began to study the laws, manners, and dispositions of the inhabitants of worlds many million times farther from the earth than thrice to "th' utmost pole." Going one day to Versailles early in the morning, to pay a visit to the court, he was observed to step under a tree, against which he placed his back, and beginning to castle-build, he was found pursuing his architectural labours in the evening upon the self-same spot. Kings, courtiers, and such "small gear," were unable to abstract him from following his favourite amusement, when the temptation of enjoying it was strong. Perhaps Fontenelle and Newton may illustrate the difference between the profound thinking of the scholar, and the amusement of which we are treating. Newton directed all his faculties into one focus upon a single object, proceeding by line and rule to develope the mystery which it was his desire to unravel. No play was allowed to the fancy, nor operation to more than one faculty of the soul at once; it is this which is so wearying to the frame, that gives pallor to the student's complexion, and frequently abridges life. Your castle-builder, on the contrary, may be a ruddy, florid, and healthy personage. He quaffs an elixir vita; his abstractions arising only from a plea

surable pursuit in following his wayward fancies, and not from painful attention to a single subject. Sancho Panza was something of a castle-builder, jolly-looking as he was. I mention him merely to show its effect on the person. When he appeared asleep, and his master demanded what he was doing, he replied, “I govern," being at that very instant busy in regulating the internal affairs of the island of Barrataria, of which the worthy Don had promised him the government when he had conquered it himself. Don Quixote, on the other hand, was not a castle-builder of the higher class. He called in the strength of his arm to aid his delusions, believing to be matter of fact those airy nothings which the true castle-builder regards as recreative illusions, and which cease to be harmless, if he attempt to realize them. The Knight of Cervantes took shadows for substances, and this leads me to denominate the style of castle-building, which I contend is so agreeable, refreshing, and innoxious-the Poetic, in contradistinction to what may be called the Prose order. The last species is a delusion respecting something, the attainment of which is possible, though it is extremely difficult and improbable. In furtherance of the actual realization of our schemes, we lay under contribution every moral and physical aid. Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, was an adept in this kind of castle-building, as his conversation with Cineas proves. When we have taken Italy, what do you design next? said Cineas; Pyrrhus answered, to go and conquer Sicily. And what next?-then Libya and Carthage. And what next? -why then to try and reconquer Macedon, when, his legitimateship said, they might sit down, eat, drink, and be merry, for the rest of their days. Cineas drily advised the king to do that which was alone certainly in his power-the last thing first. In like manner, a German author has recently constructed a castle : he has undertaken a work, which for bulk and labour will leave Lopez de Vega and Voltaire sadly in the lurch. It is to include the history, legislation, manners and customs, literature, state of arts, and language, of every nation in the world, from the beginning of time; and this, which he proposes to complete himself, will occupy him laboriously for half.a century, and carry his own age several years beyond the hundred. The French are clever at this style of castle-building: they plan admirably well, commence their labours with enthusiasm, but leave off in the middle of them. Canals, harbours, triumphal arches, constitutions, and Utopian plans of polity, abundantly attest

this. Who but a Frenchman would have written to Franklin, offering, with a preliminary apology for his condescension, to be king of America, and actually expect pecuniary remuneration for humbling himself to such a purpose! Poor Falstaff was one of this latter class of castle-builders, though it must be confessed he had something of a foundation upon which to erect his edifice, when he heard the Prince of Wales was king, and exclaimed, “Away, Bardolph, saddle my horse-Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, 'tis thine-Pistol, I will double charge thee with dignities." So are lovers who cherish extravagant hopes, and imagine their mistresses to be something between a very woman and an angel like fish, neither flesh nor fowl. The supporters of a balance of power in Europe, for which England has entailed on herself and upon her posterity such an enormous debt, is like Falstaff's interest with the new king, and, together with the payment of the said debt, a piece of castle-building worthy of king Pyrrhus.

But poetical castle-building alone is a
pleasant and harmless amusement of the
fancy, which we must lay by when we
pursue our every-day avocations, without
suffering it to interfere with the realities
of existence. It is the mixing these up
with its air-built pleasures that produces
mischievous effects. An example of this
may be found in the worthy country di-
vine, who, having preached a score or two
of orthodox sermons, thought, therefore,
in the simplicity of his heart, that he had
some claim for patronage upon all good
statute Christians, whom he determined
to edify by publishing his labours for
their benefit. He little guessed, green-
horn that he was, the real hold of religion
upon his supposed patrons, and the true
state of the market in respect to such
commodities. His guilelessness of soul
made him suppose that where there was
a church-establishment, there must neces-
sarily be among its numerous members a
high value for religious discourses such
as his were an error he fell into for want
of knowledge of the world. He calcu-
lated every thing, not forgetting the ex-
penses or the profits of his undertaking;
and that he might keep within the bounds
of modesty, and show nothing like self-
presumption in respect to the worth of
his lucubrations, he determined to limit
the impression of his volume to one copy
for every parish. He printed, therefore,
fearlessly, eleven thousand copies.
sequel may be gathered by inquiring
about the affair in the Row.

"The wisest schemes of mice and men
Gang aft awry,"

The

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