veteran bacchanalian Captain Morris, who sang the comparative merits of the metropolis and the country too well to be forgotten by such as the great wit, who, according to our lately-lost, and much-lamented friend James Smith, declared that if he were obliged to live in the country, he would have the approach to his house paved, and hire a hackney-coach by the year to drive up and down all day before his windows. George duly appreciated the charms of "the shady side of Pallmall," "the groves of tall chimneys," and all the other attributes of London, so well sung by the veteran bard; and it was there, and amongst their attributes, his thoughts were resting while making his present wearisome progress. But what were such thoughts as his worth, when the secondary object of them was such a being as Jane Bruff, and when they scarcely could wander to her fortune-the sole object of attraction to him-without resting remorselessly and wretchedly upon the lovely companion of his journey?

Ellen could not fail to notice and feel deeply the absence and abstraction by which George's conduct was characterized; but she, poor confiding girl, attributed them to the cause in which originated her own anxiety and sorrow-the approaching separation of two fond hearts, increased as she thought, on his part, by his deep losses at play, and the pain he felt at his estrangement from his father, partly, if not chiefly, as he had made her believe, consequent upon his connexion with her. It was true she was returning to an affectionate parent, whose fate, at least as far as we are concerned at present, is equally involved in mystery with that of her child; but although the proverb makes the mother say,

"My son is my son till he gets him a wife,

My daughter's my daughter the whole of her life,"

still Ellen could not overcome the gnawing recollection that she was for a time to be separated from George-herself being the cause of the separation. Poor Nelly!

The travellers slept at Montreuil on account of Tiney, and proceeded on their journey next morning. When they reached Abbeville, Tiney was hungry and to be refreshed, and Nelly herself felt as if even she could eat something. George readily acceded to the suggestion of calling a halt, and accordingly, a remarkably nice clean meal, although much too early for dinner, according to George's opinion, was served to them in the salle-à-manger under the gateway of the Tête de Bauf. While this repast was preparing, George what he called "stretched his legs," by walking out of the inn-yard, disdaining some very pressing remarks of sundry congregated beggars, who suggested the propriety of his visiting the beautiful cathedral, and the river Somme, all of which they did with a pride and enthusiasm wholly unknown to the lower orders of English, who rather wonder at the pursuits of investigating travellers, than aid them in accomplishing their objects. To all these incitements to the picturesque George turned a deaf ear, and maintained in all its force the purity of the English character, according to the French acceptation, by bestowing upon them a few of those monosyllabic anathemas, for which our countrymen are said to be so celebrated throughout the civilized world.

Turning back again, to avoid the importunities of these craving cognoscenti, George's eyes encountered, emerging from the door of a room opposite to that in which his dinner was being prepared, the tall

man in the cloak who had been his fellow-passenger in the steamer. "I seem," said the stranger, accosting George," to have got the start of you.' "Why," said George, "you travel lightly and alone, I have more companions and luggage. We slept last night at Montreuil. However, I propose to push on to Grandvilliers to-night if I can.-Are you now for Paris?"

"No," said the stranger, "I have some idea of making this a point to start from, in making a little tour which I have for some time had in contemplation. I have no doubt I shall end in Paris."

"So probably shall I," said George, "eventually; but for the present I only make a flying visit. Indeed, I shall merely pass through it to deposit my young lady with her mother at Versailles, whither I have promised her for some time to go; and then scamper back to London as fast as I can."

"So then," thought the stranger, "the account the lady gave of herself is the true one--why I should have doubted her I know not-that she is good and amiable I am sure." In fact, the stranger felt a deep interest in Ellen even at first sight; he was pleased with the manful playfulness of her child, and that interest increased when he saw her again at Abbeville, recovered from the temporary disarrangement caused by the little voyage, and looking as bright and beautiful as any one could look whose heart was full of grief, and whose eyes gave evidence that tears had been there.

George Grindle saw that the stranger was interested about them, and being satisfied by his manner, the mode in which he travelled, and the way in which he was served, that he was safely to be cultivated, was by no means disinclined to enlist him as a participator in the meal which was just ready; and indeed gave such indications of his wishes on that point, as to induce the stranger in the cloak to tell him that he had already taken a substantial luncheon; which, joined to the fact that George was hastening forward as speedily as possible, would render that arrangement useless. But when the stranger made his bow, he certainly did look at Ellen in a very peculiar manner; the look he gave was neither presumptuous nor licentious-it was not a look of worldly love; nor was it a look of an expectation of meeting with her again, founded, as with some men it might have been, on her simple statement of her destination to Versailles, corroborated by the subsequent announcement of George. But, divested as it was of all or any of these attributes, the look struck into the gentle Ellen's heart; in it, there seemed to her to be something awfully prophetic. She tried to rally from the feeling with which it had impressed her-what could this man be to her, or she to him? Yet the intensity of feeling which he exhibited on leaving them-so much deeper and even more solemn in its character than it was when they had separated in the morning at Calais astonished her not more, than the difficulty she had in endeavouring to drive it from her mind and memory.

To Tiney the stranger presented the much-loved stick on which in the packet he had taken his mimic equestrian exercise. George begged that he would not indulge the child so very much, but the stranger insisted, and la fille at the Tête de Bauf having announced to Madame that she was served, the newly-made friends prepared for their separation. Perhaps," said the stranger, "we may hereafter meet in Paris. I shall be happy if you will permit me to renew our acquaintance at

some future opportunity;" and these words were strongly emphasized with another look at Ellen, perceived by George, but without any of the nervous anxiety, or jealous displeasure, which a few months before would have agitated and angered him. On the contrary, he rejoined upon the stranger by saying, that after his kindness to Tiney, he was quite sure his mamma would be most happy, if he happened to go to Versailles, to present him to her mother, Mrs. Eversfield, who had long been residing there, and who would be exceedingly glad to evince her gratitude for his great consideration of her little spoiled grandson."

Ellen, to say truth, was rather surprised at the mode in which George gave an invitation to her mother's house to a perfect stranger; but even the most trifling mark of kindness to a darling child excites a fond mother's gratitude, and the good-nature with which he had humoured Tiney's fancy for his stick, had secured him her good opinion, not deteriorated by the consciousness of the interest which, as we have just seen, she felt strongly convinced he took in her fate, but which she was equally certain involved no sentiment which she might not properly cherish. "Good day, then," said the stranger, "you will be rattling over these terrific roads while I shall be quietly studying the beauties of this part of France, in which I have never staid. When I am in Paris, the Hotel de Bourbon is my pied à terre, and having taken so great a liberty with you, as to intrude myself, I leave you my card, in order that if you are passing my door, and feel so inclined, we may meet again."

Now to George, giving his card in return was the thing of all others he would have wished to avoid, but as the acquaintance, by the intervention of Tiney, had so far progressed, it did not seem possible for him to avoid the expression of mutual confidence and anxiety that they might know more of each other. He had hoped to get entirely clear of any further dénouement, in the first instance, by their separation at Calais; and in the second, when they met at Abbeville, by giving the stranger the name and address of Ellen's mother, at Versailles, and not being aware that the stranger knew perfectly well who he was, would, if he could, have shuffled. It was, however, in vain, and George, thus driven to the act, wrote on a piece of paper, having no visiting ticket with him, "Mr. Grindle-Crockford's," adding, as he presented it to the stranger, that wherever he might be, that address would surely find him; little supposing at the moment that as

"The great globe itself shall dissolve,"

that magnificent, convenient, convivial, agreeable, and admirable establishment was destined to dissipation wholly of another character from that for which the uninitiated choose to censure it. The "mighty master," full of wealth, and growing full of years, having achieved his labours, has resolved, like Hercules, to give up his club. At the period of which we treat, that event had not even been surmised or anticipated, and the stranger received the card as describing in a perfectly satisfactory manner the "whereabout" of Mr. George Grindle.

The new friends shook hands, the stranger shook hands with poor Ellen, and kissing the forehead of her darling boy, quitted them, leaving in the possession of Mr. George Grindle, his card, thus engraven "MR. MILES BLACKMORE,

and written :

"Hotel de Bourbon."

(To be continued.)

SUPPOSITIONS ABOUT SHAKSPEARE.

BY A ci-devant COMEDIAN.

"Well!-as you guess ?"

A CONJECTURAL peccadillo has been lately added to the outstanding list of moral misdemeanors alleged, or covertly inferred against Shakspeare. This novel charge appears in the prefatory notice appended to "The Taming of the Shrew," in Mr. Knight's pictorial edition now in progress of publication.

Not only is the authorship of the elder play, which furnished the groundwork of Shakspeare's version, claimed for Robert Greene, but the barefaced piracy is asserted to have taken place during the life of the original dramatist, and consequently formed the principal provocation to Greene's well-known attack on-in his own conceit-the only Shake-scene in a country.

When Greene penned his splenetic epistle, Shakspeare had distanced all competitors. Already had he far outstripped them in the path of popularity, and found it the palmy road to fortune. "What need the bridge much broader than the flood?" On this showing alone, professional jealousy might sufficiently account for any envious hostility displayed against the prosperous poet hy his eclipsed co-rivals, and we may fairly suppose that the feeling was aggravated in Greene, by a half-remorseful, half-malevolent sense of the contrast between his own "bad eminence," and Shakspeare's unblemished reputation. Nevertheless, I concur so far with the critic, that I believe there was a special and personal motive for the peculiar bitterness of spirit evinced by "Robin;" but I shall endeavour to prove that the ebullition sprang from a very different and far less creditable source than the assumed infringement of a copyright. Benefits bestowed on the unworthy, too often generate only antipathy in the obliged, and such, if I err not, were the relative positions of Shakspeare and Greene.

All who take an interest in the subject, now know-thanks to our successful Shakspearian "treasure seeker," Mr. Collier-that so early as 1589, Shakspeare was a shareholder in the property and profits of the Blackfriars Theatre; and that in 1608, he was, moreover, sole proprietor of the wardrobe and stage appurtenances belonging to that establishment.

I submit, then, that these facts, with other indications to be noted, point to Shakspeare "with modesty enough and likelihood to lead," as the "player," so conspicuously introduced in Greene's "Groatsworth of Wit," &c. (1592). The very vehicle, be it remembered, conveying also the selfsame author's offensive epistle. In this autobiographical tract, Greene, undisguisedly naming himself Roberto, relates that driven by his most justly-incensed elder brother from the family mansion, he had thrown himself on the earth, and was exclaiming against his treacherous partner in iniquity, the profligate courtesan Lamilia, when, "On the other side of the hedge sate one that heard his sorrow, who getting over, came towards him, and brake off his passion. When he approached, he saluted Roberto in this sort: GenNov.-VOL. LX. NO. CCXXXIX.

X

tleman,' quoth he (for so you seeme), I have by chaunce heard you discourse some part of your griefe, which appeareth to be more than you will discover, or I can conceit. But if you vouchsafe, such simple comfort as my ability will yeeld, assure yourselfe that I will endevour to doe the best, that eyther may procure you profit, or bring you pleasure; the rather, for that I suppose you are a scholler, and pittie it is men of learning should live in lacke.'

"Roberto, wondring to heare such good words, for that this yron age affordes few that esteeme of vertue, returned him thankefull gratulations, and (urged by necessitie) uttered his present griefe, beseeching his advice how he might be employed.

"Why, easily,' quoth he, and greatly to your benefit; for men of my profession get by schollers their whole living.'

"What is your profession?' sayde Roberto. "Truly, sir,' sayde he, I am a player.'

"A player!' quoth Roberto, I tooke you rather for a gentleman of great living; for if by outward habite men should be censured, I tell you you would bee taken for a substantiall man.'

"So I am where I dwell,' quoth the player, reputed able at my proper cost, to build a windmill. What, though the world once went hard with me, when I was fayne to carry my playing fardle a foot-backe, tempora mutantur: I know you know the meaning of it better than I but I thus conster it, it is otherwise now: for my very share in playing apparrell will not bee solde for two hundred pounds.'

"Truely,' sayde Roberto, it is strange that you should so prosper in that vaine practise; for that it seemes to me your voyce is nothing gracious.'

"Nay, then,' said the player, I mislike your judgment. Why I am as famous for Delphyrgus and the King of the Fairies, as ever was any of my time. "The Twelve Labours of Hercules" have I terribly thundered on the stage, and played three scenes of the Divell in the "Highway to Heaven."

666

"Have

666

so?' said Roberto. ye

6

Then I pray you pardon me.' Nay, more,' quoth the player; 'I can serve to make a pretty speech; for I was a country author, passing at a morrall; for it was I that penned "The Morrall of Man's Wit," "The Dialogue of Dives,” and for seven yeeres space was absolute interpreter of the Puppets. But now my almanacke is out of date:

"The people make no estimation

Of morals teaching education."

Was not this prety for a plain rime extempore? If ye will, yee shall have more.'

"Nay, it is enough,' said Roberto; but how mean you to use me?'

"Why, sir, in making playes,' sayde the other; for which you shall bee well paied, if you will take the paines.'"

Roberto gladly accedes to the proposal, and subsequently boasts that he became "famous for an arch playmaking poet."

In the foregoing extract, we find the palpable hit at the ownership of the "playing apparrell," coupled with its possessor's vaunt of being