for he considered it his duty, having come to visit the metropolis as a party of pleasure, to spare no trouble in compassing the ends of his journey. Going with Mr Ettle to the masquerade at Vauxhall, ilk in a domino, which is just like a minister's gown, and with black false faces on, when we were paying our money at the door for admittance, we saw before us a little, fat, and round lady, and a gentleman in the same guise and garb as ourselves; and following them in, the lady, when she beheld the lamps and bowers and arbours, cried out with a shrill voice of admiration, "Eh, Gordon's Loan, Prussia Street! Sawney Sowans, what's tat? was ever sic a sight seen!" By the which ejaculation, we discerned that this was a Paisley woman, and Mr Ettle said he knew them well, they being no other than Mr and Mrs Sowans from that town. -"We'll get some fun out of them, so keep close at their heels," said he.

With that we walked behind them listening to their discourse, and to every" Gordon's Loan, Prussia Street," with which the mistress testified her wonderment at the ferlies of the place. "I'm confoundit, Sawney Sowans," said she, "at the lights and lamps. Eh! Gordon's Loan, Prussia Street! luk up, luk up, can yon be booits too?" and she pointed to the starns in the firmament with a jocosity that was just a kittle to hear.

By and by, after parading from one part of the gardens to another, harkening to the music here, and looking to ladies and gentlemen dancing there, we entered into a most miraculous round room, with divers other halls and places, as if built up by a Geni, and stood before a batch of foreign musicants, that were piping on the Pan's pipe, nodding their heads in a most methodical manner, and beating drums and triangles at the same time. Mr and Mrs Sowans were just transported to see this, and the gudeman said to her, as he turned to go away, -"It's all in my eye."-"What's a in your eye?" quo' she." Its just clockwork," said he; at which she gave a skirl of pleasure, and cried "Na, na, gudeman, ye're glammer'd there, for they're living images of human creatures like oursels."

The crowd had now assembled in great numbers. In going out of one room into another the mistress was divided from eleeking with her husband,

and Mr Ettle seeing this, pushed in and kittled her under the oxster-" Sawney Sowans o' Paisley, whar are ye? Come here, come here, for a man's meddling wi' me."-The which shout of terrification caused a loud uproar of laughter, that was just a sport to enjoy. But after it, Mr Ettle made himself known as a friend, for Mrs Sowans was sincerely frightened, and it behoved him to pacify her, by telling that what he had done was but a masquerading for diversion. Some exchange of discourse anent London and the crowning of the King then ensued, and Mr and Mrs Sowans, telling where they bided, invited both me and Mr Ettle to come and see them in their lodgings, the mistress saying in her couthy way to me, "I hope, Mr Duffle, ye'll no neglec to gie me a ca' before ye lea the toon;" which I promised with meikle good will, for Mrs Sowans is in the main a decent woman, and no given to hide her pedigree, as was shewn by her to the minister of the parish when the maister bigget his new house. "I can sit at the window," said Mrs Sowans," and see sax houses where I was in servitude, and no ane o' them a' half so good or so bein as my ain.”

When we had paraded, as I have said, for a season, we then went into an alcove and had a small bowl of punch; and here I must notice an uncivil thing on the part of Mr Ettle, for when I was sitting resting myself he slipped away out, and left me my leaful lane. Where he went, and who he forgathered with, he kens best himsel, for I never saw hilt or hair of him more that night. So I began to grow eerie at being solitary in an unkent multitude, and coming to the yett of the gardens, hired a hackney that took me home to Mrs Damask's in perfect safety, by half an hour past eleven o'clock. The mistress marvelled at seeing me so soon from Vauxhall, and thought I had surely met with some great misfortune, either in purse or person, and could not divine how it was possible that I could be uneasy at Vauxhall.

The night following I went to hear the music in the Opera-a most suprising playhouse, and I sat down beside Mr Ettle, whom I saw in the pit. I had not, however, been long there when a most beautiful and fine lady came and clinkit herself to my side, saying, "Eh! save's, Mr Duffle, what's brought you frae the Sautmarket to

London? and how's Mrs M'Leckit?" -I was, as may well be supposed, in a consternation at this cordiality from a personage that was a match for a countess, and looked for a space of time in amazement:- 66 Do ye no ken me," cried the madam, "I'm Jenny Swinton, that was wee lass to your neighbour Mr Sweeties."-And sure enough it was the same glaikit girlie. She had a misfortune that she gied the wyte o' to some o' our neer-doweel gentlemen; but after this she fell into an open course of immorality, till she made Glasgow o'er het to hold her. Then she went into Edinburgh; and syne, having gathered some lady-like cleeding, she spoused her fortune, and set out to try her luck in London, where, as I could learn,

she was well treated as an innocent country maiden both by lords and gentlemen of high degrees. To do the poor creature justice, however, I am bound to say she was very glad to see me, and requested me very warmly to come to her house in London Street, and take my tea with her. And Doctor Pringle, to whom I mentioned the adventure next day, advised me to go, and offered himself to accompany me, in the hope that by our exhortations Jenny might be persuaded to eschew the error of her way. But I had a notion that the invitation was all a trick of Mr Ettle's, to draw me into a situation with this strange woman; for they seemed to be very thick the gither, though he pretended that he didna ken her.

THE more I saw of the great Tarshish, my spirit was filled with wonder, and borne onward with a longing for new things. Finding it was not convenient to go home for my dinner, when I was in a distant part of the town, I dropped into the nearest coffeehouse, when I felt an inclination to eat, and by this means I sometimes forgathered with strange persons, deeply read in the mysteries of man.Among others, I one day, when I felt the wonted two o'clock pinkling in my belly, stepped into an eating-house, to get a check of something, and sat down at a table in a box where an elderly man, of a salt-water complexion, was sitting. Having told the lad that was the waiter what I wanted, I entered into discourse with the hard-favoured stranger. His responses to me were at first very short, and it seemed as if he had made up his mind to stint the freedom of conversation. But there was a quickened intelligence in his eye, which manifested that his mind neither slumbered nor slept. I told him that I was come on purpose to inspect the uncos in London, and how content I was with all I saw ;and my continued marvel at the great apparition of wealth that seemed to abound everywhere. "I think," said I," that its only in London a man can see the happiness of the British nation." "And the misery," was his reply. This caustical observe led to further discant anent both sides of the question, until he opened up, and

showed that his reserve was but a resolution-not habitual, nor from the custom of his nature. "The least interesting things about this town," said he, "to a man who looks deeper than the outside of the packing-case of society, are the buildings,—the wealth, and the appearance of the people. The pre-eminence of London consists in the possession of a race of beings that I call the Effigies.→ They resemble man in action and external bearing; but they have neither passions, appetites, nor affections ;without reason, imagination, or heart, they do all things that men do, but they move onward to the grave, and are covered up in the parent and congenial clay with as little regret by those who knew them best, as you feel for the fate of that haddock you are now about to eat."

"And what are the things?" was my diffident answer. Why," says he, "they are for the most part foundlings of fortune,-beings without relations; adventurers, who at an early period of life, perhaps begged their way to London, and have raised themselves, not by talent or skill, but by a curious kind of alchemy, into great riches. I have known several. They are com monly bachelors,―bachelors in the heart. They live in a snug way,have some crony that dines with them on Sunday, and who knows as little of their affairs as of their history.The friendship of such friends usually commences in the Hampstead or Hack

ney stages, and the one is commonly a pawnbroker and the other a banker. The professions of such friendshipless friends are ever intrinsically the same, nor can I see any difference between the man who lends money on bills and bonds, and him who does the same thing on the widow's weddingring, or the clothes of her orphans. They both grow rich by the expedients of the necessitous or the unfortunate. They make their money by habit, without motive, and they bequeath it to some charity or public character, merely because they are by the force of custom required to make a will.-I am a traveller, I know something of all the principal cities of Europe, but in no other has the Effigian species any existence. Their element consists of the necessities of a commercial community, which embraces all the other vicissitudes to which mankind are ordinarily liable.

"One of the most decided, the purest blood of the Effigies, was the late old Joe Brianson. Whether he begged or worked his way to London is disputed; but he commenced his career as a porter.No one ever heard him mention the name of any of his kin; perhaps he had some good reason for the concealment.-The first week he saved a crown, which he lent to a brother bearer of burdens who was in need, on condition of receiving six shillings on the Saturday following. In the course of the third week after his arrival, he was worth one pound sterling; and he died at the age of 73, leaving exactly a million, not taking out of the world one idea more than he brought into London fifty-six years before;-and yet the history of Joe would be infinitely more interesting and important than that of all the men of fame and genius that ever existed. For although he was, in the truest sense of the times, a usurious huncks, he was never drawn into one transaction against the statutes.-I knew him well in my younger years, for I had often occasion to apply to him. I was constituted somewhat differently, and without being so good a member of society, I do not say much for myself when I affirm that I was a better man. Joe was most faithful to his word his promise was a bond; but like a bond, it always contained a penalty. " If this bill,” he used to say, is not pointedly taken up, "I

promise you it will be heard of;" and when it was not taken up, it was heard of, and that too with a vengeance. He never gave a groat in charity, because he never had one to give. He lived all his days as literally from hand to mouth as when he entered London without a penny. If you wanted a bill discounted, he never did it off-hand. He had all his own cash previously put out at usury, and was obliged to apply to his bankers. They got at the rate of five per cent. per annum. Joe agreed to sell some article of merchandize to his customer,-and the price he put on it left him not less in general than five per cent. per month, upon the principal of the bill discounted. But the wealth he thus gathered, might almost be said to have been unblest, for it brought him no new enjoyment. At the age of three score, and possessed of half a million, he was taken ill with vexation in consequence of a clerk dying insolvent, who had been in his service three and twenty years, and to whom he had discounted a bill for twenty pounds in anticipation of his salary; the poor man being at the time under the necessity of submitting to an operation for the stone.

"Joe married when he was about fifty. His wife was the daughter of a man with whom he had formed an acquaintance in the Islington stage-coach. She was beautiful and accomplished, and beloved by a handsome young butcher; but educated at a fashionable boarding-school, the butcher's trade was unsavoury to her imagination. Her own father was a nightman-a dealer in dung-hills. There is some difference between a banker and a butcher; and old sordid Joe was on that account preferred to the young butcher by the nightman's daughter. They begat a son and a daughter. The former, at the age of twenty-two, was elected into Parliament by his father's purse. The latter, at the age of nineteen, was married by the same potentiality to an Earl. Joe died-his son and daughter put their servants into mourning when he ceased to discount, and in less than three months after gave them new liveries, in honour of their mother's second marriage. There are no such beings as these in any other capital of Europe, and yet they are common in London. Father, mother, son, and daughter, belong to

a peculiar species, and it would be a libel on human nature to rank them with the race of man."

Here I could not refrain from saying to the strange man, having by this time well finished my dinner, that I thought he had a sour heart towards the sons and daughters of success and prosperity. No," says he, " you misunderstand me. I was only speaking of the Effigies, a species of the same genus as man, but widely different in the generalities of their nature." I could not say that this story left any satisfaction with me, which the

rehearser observing, said, "But the Effigies are perhaps not so remarkable as another class, of a very opposite description.-I do not well know by what epithet to distinguish them; but if you will join me in a bottle of wine, I will give you some account of one of them, and the tale may be called 'The Broken heart.' This was a very agreeable proposal to me, who had no other end in view at the time but my own recreation; so we ordered in one of the landlord's old bottles; during the drinking of which my companion proceeded to the following effect.

"THERE are but two kinds of adventurers who succeed in London; those who, like Joe Brianson, come to it pennyless, with industrious propensities, and those who have friends of power and influence. Young men, brought up as gentlemen in the country, rarely prosper in London; and it is of one of these I would now speak. The person I allude to was the son of a clergyman. He was known among his companions by the nickname of Buskin; and his unhappy fate makes me remember him by no other.

"He was one of a large family.His father, however, had a good living, but it was unfortunately in a genteel neighbourhood, and the sons and daughters in consequence acquired notions of elegance inconsistent with their fortune. While the old man lived, this produced no evil. At his death, the whole family was plunged into poverty. By that time, however, Buskin, who had come to London as a clerk, was settled in a business, which, while there was no other drain on it than his own expences, was adequate, it appeared, to all his wants, notwithstanding his extra-gentility. But, from the time that he was necessitated to contribute to the support of his brothers and sisters, his efforts were unavailing to make it sufficiently productive, and a change was soon perceptible in his appearance. Previously he had been rather a sedate character-something given to reflection and sentiment. He wrote poetry, and played on the flute. But soon after the arrival of his friends in town, he became remarkably gay-forswore, it would seem, the Muses-and enter

ed with something of an inordinate keenness into every species of cheerful amusement. He was praised for this.

It was thought he had the interests of his sisters in view,—and courted society, to give the gentlemen of his acquaintance an opportunity of knowing their worth and beauty; for they were lovely, amiable, and accomplished to an uncommon degree. This, however, was but the first stage of the mortal malady with which poor Buskin was seized.

In

"The symptoms of gaiety and good humour continued about a year, when others began to appear. his dress and manners, the patient still seemed the same individual, but his temper became sharp and irritable. He was satisfied with nothing; the sun itself never shone properly; when he went into the fields, the west wind had lost its genial freshness, and the blossoms, that garlanded the boughs in spring, seemed to him tawdry. The song of the lark was harsh in his ears; and he was heard often to repine at the lot of the day-labourer, whose anxieties terminated with the hours of his task, and who had none beyond the daily period of his toil.

"At first this attracted no particular notice, or when it was noticed, it only seemed to provoke the banter of his friends; but the misanthropic humour continued to grow, and at last it began to be surmised, that his affairs were not thriving. I never obtrude my advice; but one day, when he was unusually petulant, I could not refrain from remarking to him the alteration I have mentioned, and to express my fears.

"You are right,' replied he, 'in some respects; my affairs are, indeed, not thriving, or rather they are not adequate to supply the demands of duty and affection. In other respects I have no reason to complain.'-Then why don't you abridge your expence? you do not want resolution on other occasions-why would you go with your eyes open over the precipice?'I do not like,' said he, to lose the footing I possess in society; and I hope that something may come round to help me.'

"There was an accent of sorrow in the use of that word help, that rung upon my heart. I could say no more; I had it not in my power to assist the unfortunate man; I could only pity, and mark the progress of his consuming anguish, as one friend contemplates another dying of a consumption.

"But the period of irritation and bitterness also passed, and was succeeded by another more deplorable. He became again singularly animated-his whole mind seemed to be endowed with preternatural energy. In amusement and in business, he was equally inexhaustible; all with whom he took a part in either, admired his vigour, and complained of that amazing activity which left their utmost exertions and efforts so far behind. I was awed and alarmed-I looked at him with astonishment. His voice, in conversa tion, when any thing like argument was started, became irresistibly eloquent. There was a haste in the movements of his mind, as if some great countervailing weight had been taken away. One evening, in returning with him from a party where this had been remarkably the case, I said to him familiarly, Buskin, what the devil's the matter with you? you seem as if your thoughts were in a hurry.'-'They are so,' he replied, and they have cause, for they are hunted by a fiend.'

"I was horror-struck; but what could I say? I attempted to remonstrate, but he shut my mouth. "It is now too late to reason with me-the struggle will soon be over. I feel that I am left to myself; that the protection of Pro

vidence is withdrawn, and hope is extinguished. Wherever I move, I am, as it were, in a magical circle. I never come any more into contact with humanity.-I am excommunicated.'

"Although I was grieved and terrified by this rapsody, I yet thought it advisable to ridicule it-when, in a moment, he struck me violently in the face. My blood was ever inflammable at the slightest insult, but this blow smote my heart with indescribable pain, and so far from feeling any thing like resentment at the insult, I could not refrain from bursting into tears, and taking the irritated young man by the hand. It was too dark for me to see his face, but when I pressed his hand, I felt that his whole frame shuddered. Nothing more passed that night. I accompanied him home to his own door, and we parted without speaking, but shook hands in a way that said more to the spirit than the tongue could have uttered. On reaching my lodgings, I sat down, and my thick arising fancies would not allow me to go to bed. At last they got so far the better of me that I went again out, and walked to Buskin's house.-All was silent and repose there. I passed two or three times in front, and then went home; but the night-mare was upon me, and the interval till morning was hideous. At an earlier hour than usual, I rose and dressed myself, and again went into the street, where my unhappy friend resided; and as I approached towards his door, I was startled by a medical gentleman, one of our mutual friends, coming out.” ***

At this point of his story, the hardfavoured stranger's voice faltered, and drawing his hand hastily over his face, he abruptly rose, and went to the door. In the course of a few minutes, during the which I was in a state of rumination, he returned, and calling the waiter, asked what was to pay for the wine; and, throwing down his half of the reckoning, bade me good afternoon, and went away, leaving me to guess and ponder anent the sad and mournful issue of his tale.

VOL. X.

Y