coloured clouds smiled on the "youth of both sexes," whilst, to say the truth, the firstlings of the flock, including the heir to the title and estate, cut but a sorry figure as the rear-rank in this family review.

It is a singular fact, that scarcely had this interesting picture been replaced in its former situation, when the second Lady Wedderburn was conveyed to the family vault.

Sir Geoffrey, who bore his loss with becoming resignation, after some time devoted to decent grief, bethought him that if four babes required female care, the motive which had induced him to form a second alliance, surely eleven young ones claimed such consideration in nearly a triple degree. He married again; and for some years the number of his family remained in statu quo. But the peace of Amiens enabling him to travel on the continent, a visit was accomplished, in company with his young wife to the spas of Germany; and in less than six months after their return home, caudle, cake, and Constantia were handed round to the numerous friends who came to see the beauteous baby.

Not to dwell upon my story, five times did the neighbours pay similar visits to Matchwood Hall; and the " Baronetage" had now to record the progress of the triple alliance, from THOMAS, the heir, born 25th of December, 1775, in holy orders, down to Theodosia Clementina Sophia, born 1st of April, 1811.

And was it to be supposed that a lady who could confer such names on her daughter would submit to the slightest mark of neglect to any of her offspring? No! Sir Geoffrey was now turned of sixty; and although hale and hearty, not very likely to marry again, should fate ordain that she should be called away from her maternal cares, the Family picture might now be completed, she did not contemplate another visit to Baden; and therefore thought it unlikely that she should add another to the sixteen which constituted the Wedderburn circle. Ergo, the Family picture should be finished.

The original artist had given up provincial engagements; he was now employed on full lengths of kings, princes, statesmen, and beauties, and doubtless would have blushed to look upon the crude and early efforts of his pencil, pointed out as a fine specimen of the arts to all visiters to Matchwood.

A limner from London was however brought down, and the "latest arrivals" were done to the life, in all the fascination of the costume for children then displayed in that popular magazine of fashion, "Ackermann's Repository." The new artist's ingenuity was somewhat taxed, as he scarcely found ample room and verge enough for his labours; but at length contrived to place the five darlings in such positions as to give me the idea that he had taken his notion from that manoeuvre in platoon firing, "Front rank kneeling." The primal angel, vis-à-vis'd, in the clouds, with the sainted spirit of her successor, whilst the father and husband kept his corner and costume undisturbed, and the present Lady Wedderburn, in very scanty petticoats, and remarkably short waist, occupying the station which had been honoured by those above, stood staring from the canvas with an earnestness so intense, that you might almost imagine she was looking out for a husband, in the event of the venerable Sir Geoffrey joining his two treasures in the clouds.

BENSON E. HILL.

"ALLOW me to ask," said Mr. Brown, covering with his lips the mouth of the deaf gentleman's speckled snake-looking ear-pipe, and sending a volley of sharp sounds into it that might have filled the Thames-tunnel; "allow me to ask if you can hear your own voice in conversation?"

The deaf gentleman was posed. He looked out cogitatively at the corners of his eyes, in a manner that plainly said, "I can't say I can," or in other words, "I wish I could."

We all wished the same. Our friend the deaf gentleman is one of the best of creatures, who never uttered a word to wound anybodywho never talks but in the kindliest key-who has a silver voice that winds its way into the heart, and one felt it doubly hard that tones so pleasant to others should be mute to himself. It was affecting to think that the first and dearest happiness in life was denied to him-he could'nt hear himself speak.

"I don't know," said the deaf gentleman, bewildered by the intensity of a natural wish to hear his own voice; "I am not quite sure; sometimes I half fancy that I can. I seem to catch a sentence at intervals a few straggling words perhaps that have lost their way, and got into my ear-pipe by accident."

Brown is a cruel wag. He would'nt let the deaf gentleman enjoy his delusion. "My dear Sir," rejoined he, as he again applied his mouth to the tube, and poured into it a sound, the sharpness of which appeared to be subdued by a feeling of real concern and commiseration; my dear Sir, you must be mistaken. It is impossible that you can ever hear what you say, or you'd never give utterance in any company to those shocking things that sometimes escape you!"

The deaf gentleman turned pale. One end of the pipe dropped from his ear, the instant Brown dropped the other extremity. A new light had broken in upon him, or rather a new source of gloom and obscurity was mercilessly opened up. He could'nt hear the words he utteredhow could he tell what words he uttered? He always knew what he meant to say, he could never know what he really said! Amidst all his nervousness and despondency, the doubt-the difficulty-the danger in which he stood, had never suggested itself before. Brown, however, was joking; and the deaf gentleman, seeing others laugh, tried to laugh too; "shifted his trumpet" into his coat pocket-" took snuff," like Sir Joshua, and then his hat. His "good morning' "" was as bland and silver-toned as usual, but having uttered these two common words, he coloured up to the eyes-looked confused and perplexed, and disappeared hastily. As he shut the door, I shouted out that I would call upon him in the evening; but a promise shot from Perkins's steamgun would not have hit the deaf gentleman's ear at two yards' distance. He went home (as I afterwards learned) to a solitary dinner, instead of dining at the club, as he had intended. The hint thrown out touching this new feature of his deafness, had induced him to change his mind, and to avoid company until he had had a little self-communion.

He took three extra glasses of Madeira without washing down the obstinate doubt that threatened to become an impediment to his ever speaking again with any confidence or comfort.

Naturally fond of music, which he could have enjoyed at all hours but for the single drawback of not being able to hear a note, he resorted for solace to his music-book, and began to read. The effort was unsuccessful-a solitary crotchet, harsh and horrid, having taken possession of his mind. He drew his chair to the fire, and endeavoured to divert himself by seeing the tea-kettle sing. His blood began to boil too. He knew there was a singing sound issuing from the kettle; but what sound? the air might be "Drops of Brandy," or it might be "Allan Water" for aught he could tell.

It became clearer to him, the more he reflected, that the theory of the human will was rank nonsense. It was his will to hear the song of the hot-water nymph in the kettle, but not a note struck upon his tympanum. It was his will in like manner to utter certain words agreeably to a preconceived idea—but did he utter them? Might not the idea be a false conception? Failing to hear, he felt that he could'nt be quite sure that he spoke at all; still less certain was he that the intended words were the words spoken. Meaning to speak, and speaking, could not be exactly the same thing, it was clear. All his experience told him, all his information of the course of human life went to prove, that people are continually saying and doing things the very opposites of their intentions. Aiming at pigeons and killing crows is the leading characteristic of mankind. It has been so, it is so, and it will be so. Could he flatter himself that he was exempt from the common infirmity? Could he be very, very positive, in the absence of auricular testimony, that when he had made up his mind to express a courteous and grateful feeling in the ordinary terms, such as "I'm much obliged," he was not liable to say instead-it might so happen— "You be ," without discovering the mistake, or having a chance of apologising?

"I had no idea of doing it ;"-" I did not know what I was doing;" "I intended to have done the very reverse;"-these are household words, heard at all times and everywhere, so frequently, as to show that neither man nor pig should be confident that he is not travelling to Cork when he thinks he is going to Fermoy. It is the case with what we say as with what we do. Nothing is so proverbially common as assurances of friendship, professions of admiration, and declarations of patriotism, spoken but not meant. Where is the nice line between design and accident in all this to be drawn? Much of it may be wilful, but more probably is inadvertent. "What I really meant to say was"-is not more a stock phrase in the House of Commons than elsewhere. The deaf gentleman turned all this over in his mind, and felt all the horror of the hazard he must run, should he ever again venture to attempt the utterance of a single word. Other people could correct, explain, recall-it must be his fate to speak at random, and to expose himself and his audience to the most dreadful risks. To speak and not hear was to walk on a precipice and not see. To use that awful weapon the tongue without being certain of its sayings, was worse than flourishing about a drawn sword in the dark. The deaf gentleman felt that he was in duty bound to be dumb.

He began to review the past. Yesterday turned back its head over its shoulder, and stared him in the face, smiling grimly. Only yesterday he had parted with his housekeeper. She had been his faithful, middle-aged handmaid for some years; and was brimful, to the pockethole, of all estimable qualities. She had lungs beyond her sex; "her voice was never soft, gentle, and low,-an excellent thing in woman," when attendant upon a deaf gentleman. She left him to better her condition, that is, to be married to a schoolmaster, whose voice was beginning to fail him when the boys wanted bullying. He remembered all she had said at parting-but not a word of his own replies. She seemed to mingle reproaches, delicate, but still decided reproaches, with her tender adieus. She could not possibly have intended to insinuate that he might have prevented that painful parting by marrying her himself. No, she was quite another kind of woman. He was distressed at the time; but he did not then see the cause of her reproof. He had blundered out unmeant words; he had aimed at wishing her happy, and -as talking was mere guess-work to him-he had probably wished her at-. That faithful, and sensitive, and tender handmaid, how must she have been grieved! Soured for life, perhaps. He pitied the school

master.

More bitter still was the reflection with which he dwelt upon the recent defeat of all his hopes of putting an end to his bachelorship. When his housekeeper gave him warning, he resolved to take warning; and at once "pop the question" to a fair lady, who, loving the sound of her own voice, had long delighted him, by talking loud nothings through his pipe. He popped-but his, alas, were rejected addresses. The shepherd and his pipe were cast off by the cruel fair. Why? he now asked himself. My Lady Tongue would never have refused a gentleman for being deaf; no, that was the one great advantage-she would have the talk to herself. The truth was clear, he had popped a wrong question of some sort or other, and who could tell its tendency? Perhaps he had implored her to relieve his anxiety as to the real state of herage; perhaps he had popped a question as to the authenticity of her eyebrows; or entreated her, in his fervour, to bless him with a solution of the mystery appertaining to those half-dozen teeth of hers, which, he could not help remarking, had made their appearance in front, one by one, with the celerity of tombstones in a Sierra Leone churchyard. This, or something worse, he must have done; and thus he had driven her into a deliberate deafness, more intense than his own, if there be any truth in the proverb. She had left him without pity, to " pipe his eye," as well as his ear, for the sad remainder of a speechless life.

He extended his review of his past existence: he proceeded to count up the number of his friends (few men have so many), to muster his acquaintances in his memory-to call, in idea, a great public meeting of all the persons to whom he had ever spoken a syllable in life, gentle and simple, old and young, great nobles and pretty nursemaids. The congregation was immense, and, as in a crowd at an execution, the females preponderated. His mind's eye wandered over the mob, and dropt an imaginary tear. How many of that vast assemblage might he not have shamefully, though innocently, insulted! He had conversed more or less with every one; he had not heard a single syllable of all that he had addressed to them,--and what language might he not have em

ployed, how many might have silently pronounced him a savage,-how many more a madman! His heart acquitted him of all intention to hurt the feelings of the most worthless of the monstrous group; yet what thousands might he have shocked, pained-by phraseology "over which he had no control." His fancy contemplated the whole motley crowd as a collection of injured angels. He stood a culprit at the bar of his imagination; and being his own judge and jury, clearly convicted. himself of divers unknown offences. In the front of the grand gathering of his victims, his eye detected the three or four of us whom he had casually met in the morning. We were the last who had ever heard him articulate a word. He began to wonder what he had said to us: he thought of the parting expression which he had used-which he had meant to use, rather-the only words he had uttered out of doors since he had been awakened to a consciousness of his responsibility—a sense of his awful situation! He meant to say 66 good morning;" but how, in his uncertainty, could he help feeling a renewal of the nervous sensation-the delicacy of alarm-which he had experienced the instant he had spoken. There was no remedy for the evil, no end to this agonizing anxiety, save in the philosophical course adopted by Iago-" From this time forth I never will speak word."

The deaf gentleman took from his pocket his ear-pipe, that he might try his own voice on his own tympanum. The action suggested the possibility of carrying about with him a second convenience. He had another coat pocket; might it not be appropriated to the reception of a speaking-trumpet-a pipe to talk through, so that he might really hear his own conversation, and know what he was saying. It would be rather noisy in company, but it would be making sure of sound. The idea put a new life into his heart; excitement and depression began to struggle for the mastery; the confusion in his mind became worse confounded. It was at this moment that I arrived at his chambers, making my threatened evening call. I opened the door, of course, without the superfluity of a tap, which would be as inaudible to him as the knocking was to Duncan. The deaf gentleman, however, in the refinement of his courtesy, the instant he gets a glimpse of you at the partially opened door, always invites you forward, with a COME IN," by way of response to your supposed ceremonious tap. Now come in was intended to have come out on my behalf; but the deaf gentleman was confused, and perplexed;-the man who much dreads doing a deed, will certainly do it at last; (this, by the way, is the moral I was endeavouring to work out ;)—he who fears he shall say what he should'nt, will be sure to say it in the end; (this may sound precisely like the truth, yet it is true;)—and thus, in his confusion and perplexity, he started from his reverie upon his legs, and almost stunned me with the thundering salutation of-" BE OFF."

L. B.