To see her struggling against the impassibility of a nature less noble than her own -to think of her all forlorn and solitary, piteous in her youth and helplessness, on the verge of so many miseries, wrung his heart with pity, with tenderness, with Was it something of envy too? All the powers of life were surging about Lottie, contending in her and around her; forces vulgar yet powerful, calling forth in that bit of a girl, in that slim creature, made, the man thought, for all the sweetness and protection of life, all its heroic qualities instead while for such as he, thirty-five, and a man, fate held nothing but quiet, and mastery of all circumstances, Handel and the Abbey! What a travesty and interchange of all that was fit and natural! for him ought to be the struggle, for her the peace; but Providence had not ordained it so.

How often is this so! times without number, the weak have to struggle while the strong look on. Women and children labor while full-grown men rest; the sick and the feeble have all the powers of darkness to encounter, while the athlete yawns his unoccupied force away. So this strange paradox of a world runs on. The minor canon, who was of very gentle mould, with a heart open as day to melting charities, sat and thought of it with a giddiness and vertigo of the heart. He could not change it. He could not take up Lottie's trouble and give her his calm. One cannot stand in another's place not you in mine, nor I in yours though you may be a hundred times more capable of my work than I. This was what Ernest Ashford thought sitting among his peaceful books, and following Lottie Despard in imagination into the little lodge which was her battlefield. Sympathy gave him the strongest mental perception of all that took place there. The only thing he had no clue to was the sweet and secret flood of consolation which subdued her sense of all her troubles - which already had drowned the dread of the future, and floated over with brightness the difficulties of the present in Lottie's heart.

Next morning Law arrived at the house of the minor canon, considerably to his own surprise, with his big Virgil under his arm. "I don't know whether you meant it, or if she understood you," he said, shy and uncomfortable, looking down at his shoes, and presenting the top of his head rather than his face to Mr. Ashford's regard, "but my sister said

"Yes; I meant it fully. Sit down and

tell me what you have been doing, and whereabouts you are in your work. I have a pupil coming presently with whom proba. bly you might read

"Well-you must know that I haven't been what you might call working very hard, you know," said Law, still butting at his future instructor with the top of his head. He sat down as Mr. Ashford directed him, but he did not give up the earnest contemplation of his boots. "It isn't so easy to get into the way of it when you're working alone. I left school a long time ago and I don't know that it was much of a school-and latterly I was a little bit irregular and so, you know

-

"I see," said the minor canon; "however it is not too late to do better. What is that big book under your arm Virgil? Very well. Construe a passage for me, and let me see how you get on

"Shall I do a bit I know, or a bit I don't know?" said Law, raising his head this time with a doubtful gleam, half of merriment; "of course I want to put my best foot foremost - but I don't want to take you in all the same."

"I must trust you entirely on that point or, give me the book, I will choose, and chance shall decide."

"Oh, hang it!" said Law under his. breath; he would have been honest, and avowed what he knew; but this kind of sortes did not please him. The perspiration came out on his forehead. Of course it was a very hard bit, or what Law thought a very hard bit, that turned up-and the way in which he struggled through it, growing hotter and hotter, redder and redder, was a sight to see.

"That will do," Mr. Ashford said, compassionate yet horrified. "That will do;" and he took the book out of his would-be pupil's hands with a sigh, and smoothed down the page which Law had ruffled in his vain efforts, with a regretful touch, as though asking pardon of Virgil. "Suppose we have a little talk on this subject?" he said. "No doubt you have made up your mind what you would like to do?"

"Not I," said Law. "It will have to be some office or other - that's the only way in which a fellow who has no money seems to be able to make a living. A very poor living so far as I hear - but still it is something, I suppose. That is not what I would like by nature. I'd like to go out to Australia or New Zealand. I hate the notion of being cooped up to a. desk. But I suppose that is how it will have to be

"Because of your sister? you would

"Don't go yet." There sprang up in the minor canon's mind a kindness for this impracticable yet thoroughly practicalminded boy, who was not wise enough to be good for anything, yet who was too wise to plunge into rash expenses and the arduous exertion of living on an officer's pay; curious instance of folly and wisdom, for even an officer's pay was surely better than no pay at all. Mr. Ashford did not want to throw Law off, and yet he could not tell what to do with him. "Will you stay and try how much you can follow of young Uxbridge's work?" he said; "I daresay you have not for the moment anything much better to do."

Law gave a glance of semi-despair from the window upon the landscape, and the distance, and the morning sunshine. No! he had nothing better to do. It was not that he had any pleasures in hand, for pleasure costs money, and he had no money to spend; and he knew by long experience that lounging about in the morning without even a companion is not very lively. Still he yielded and sat down, with a sigh. Mere freedom was something, and the sensation of being obliged to keep in one place for an hour or two, and give himself up to occupation, was disagreeable; a fellow might as well be in an office at once. But he submitted. "Young Uxbridge?" he said; "what is he going in for? the Guards, I suppose?" Law sighed; ah! that was the life. But he was aware that for himself he might just as easily aspire to be a prince as a guardsman. He took his seat at the table resignedly, and pulled the books towards him, and looked at them with a dislike that was almost pathetic. Hateful tools! but nothing was to be done without them. If he could only manage to get in somewhere by means of the little he knew of them, Law vowed in his soul he would never look at the rubbish again.

Young Uxbridge, when he came in spick and span, in the freshest of morning coats and fashionable ties for which things Law had a keen eye, though he could not indulge in them-looked somewhat askance at the slouching figure of the new pupil. But though he was the son of a canon and in the best society, young Uxbridge was not more studious, and he was by nature even less gifted, than Law. Of two stupid young men, one may have all the advantage over another which talent can give, without having any talent to brag of. Law was very dense with respect

more quickly what was said to him, and had a play of humor and meaning in his face, a sense of the amusing and absurd if · nothing more, which distinguished him from his companion, who was steadily level and obtuse all round, and never saw what anything meant. Thus though one knew more than the other, the greater ignoramus was the more agreeable pupil of the two; and the minor canon began to take an amused interest in Law as Law. He kept him to luncheon after the other was gone, and encouraged the boy to talk, giving him such a meal as Law had only dreamt of. He encouraged him to talk, which perhaps was not quite right of Mr. Ashford, and heard a great deal about his family, and found out that, though Lottie was right, Law was not perhaps so utterly wrong as he thought. Law was very wrong, yet when he thus heard both sides of the question, the minor canon perceived that it was possible to sympathize with Lottie in her forlorn and sometimes impatient struggle against the vis inertia of this big brother, and yet on the other hand to have an amused pity for the big brother too, who was not brutal but only dense, gaping with wonder at the fine spirit that longed and struggled to stimulate him into something above himself. So stimulated Law never would be. He did not understand even what she wanted, what she would have; but he was not without some good in him. No doubt he would make an excellent settler in the backwoods, working hard there though he would not work here, and ready to defend himself against any tribe of savages; and he would not make a bad soldier. But to be stimulated into a first-class man in an examination, or an any-class man, to be made into a male Lottie of fine perceptions and high ambition, that was what Law would never be.

"But she is quite right," said Law; "something must be done. I suppose you have heard, Mr. Ashford, as everybody seems to have heard, that the governor is going to marry again?"

"I did hear it; will that make a great difference to your sister and you?"

"Difference? I should think it would make a difference. As it happens, I know P, the woman he is going to marry. She makes no secret of it, that grown-up sons and daughters shouldn't live at home. I shall have to leave, whatever happens; and Lottie - well, in one way Lottie has more need to leave than I have: I shouldn't mind her manners and that sort of thing but Lottie does mind."

"Perhaps," said Law; "but I don't know where she gets her ideas from, for we never were so very fine. However, I might stand it, but Lottie never will be able to stand it; and the question follows, what is she to do? For myself, as I say, I could 'list, and there would be an end of the matter."

"But in that case you would not be of much use to your sister."

Law shrugged his shoulders. "I should be of use to myself, which is the first thing. And then you know-but perhaps you don't know all this is obstinacy on Lottie's part, for she might be as well off as any one. She might, if she liked, instead of wanting help, be able to help us all. She might start me for somewhere or other, or even make me an allowance, so that I could get into the army in the right way. When I think of what she is throwing away, it makes me furious; she might make my fortune if she liked - and be very comfortable herself, too."

"And how is all this to be done?" said the minor canon somewhat tremulously, with a half-fantastic horror in his mind of some brutal alternative that might be in Lottie's power, some hideous marriage or sacrifice of the conventional kind. He waited for Law's answer in more anxiety than he had any right to feel, and Law on his side had a gleam of righteous indignation in his eyes, and for the moment felt himself the victim of a sister's cruelty, defrauded by her folly and unkindness of a promotion which was his due.

"Look here," he said solemnly; "all this she could do without troubling herself one bit, if she chose; she confessed it to me herself. The signor has made her an offer to bring her out as a singer, and to teach her himself first for nothing. That is to say, of course, she would pay him, I suppose, when he had finished her, and she had got a good engagement. You know they make loads of money, these singers - and she has got as fine a voice as any of them. Well now, fancy, Mr. Ashford, knowing that she could set us all up in this way, and give me a thorough good start, she's refused; and after that she goes and

talks about me!"

For a moment Mr. Ashford was quite silenced by this sudden assault. A bold thrust is not to be met by fine definitions, and for the first moment the minor canon was staggered. Was there not some_natural justice in what the lout said? Then he recovered himself.

"But," he said, "there are a great many objections to being a singer." He was a little inarticulate, the sudden attack having taken away his breath. "A lady might well have objections: and the family might have objections."

"Oh! I don't mind," said Law; "if I did I should soon have told her; and you may be sure the governor doesn't mind. Not likely the thing we want is money, and she could make as much money as ever she pleases. And yet she talks about me! I wish I had her chance; the signor would not have to speak twice; I would sing from morning to night if they liked." "Would you work so hard as that? then why don't you work a little at your books? the one is not harder than the other."

"Work! Do you call singing a lot of songs work?" said the contemptuous Law.

From Fraser's Magazine.

LETTERS OF COLERIDGE, SOUTHEY, AND LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM.

[HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.]

"I RETURN you by a careful hand the MSS.," wrote Charles Lamb to Matilda Betham. "Did I not ever love your verses? The domestic half will be a sweet heirloom to have in the family. 'Tis fragrant with cordiality. What friends you must have had or dreamed of having! and what a widow's cruse of heartiness you have doled among them!" "I remember," wrote Southey to the same in 1815, "that I did not say half as much about your poem as I ought to have done, but this shall be made amends for in proper place, for I like it so much that it will give me very sincere pleasure to say how good it is in a manner that may be serviceable." From Allan Cunningham came the following enthusiastic eulogium of the same work (“" The Lay of Marie "): "How could you suspect my admiration and love of poetry by apologizing for gratifying me with the perusal of a poem so full of fine feeling and fancy, beautiful description and imagery, impressive morality, and melting pathos?" Without being able to echo the high praise just quoted, I have felt that much interest and some instruction might be afforded by some memorial of a "strongminded woman," who was in her prime in the early part of this century, and who was moreover the intimate friend of Charles and Mary Lamb, the Southeys, Mrs. Bar

From a little girl brought up in an isolated country parsonage, who at the age of fourteen read Tom Paine and set herself to answer his arguments seriatim, something remarkable might be expected. The promise of her youth, partly owing to domestic circumstances and illness, and chiefly to the lack of opportunities then open to women, was never fulfilled; yet Matilda Betham attempted to achieve much more than was usual in those days.

The story of her early life, as told by herself, has a touching interest for all who sympathize with that hunger and thirst of her sex after knowledge then so seldom encouraged, much less satisfied. She had no education beyond that afforded by her father's excellent library, and what teaching he found time to give her. She thus acquired a passionate love of history and anecdote, which, coupled with the marvellous memory she had inherited from him, made her conversation so delightful in old age.

"Many people have thought me naturally a singular and perhaps imprudent person because I rhymed and ventured into the world as an artist," she wrote; "but I belonged to a large family, and dreaded dependence. My mother's handsome fortune was lessened by the expense of a chancery suit of eleven years' standing. My father's hopes of preferment were one by one disappointed by death and translation of bishops, and once by having delayed a request because he would not call about it on a Sunday. The destination of

* The Bethams or De Bethams are an ancient Westmorland family (see Burn's "History of Westmorland" for notice of the De Bethams of Betham), and in the little church of Betham, near Kendal, are the recumbent figures in stone of Sir Thomas de Betham and his wife, in tolerable preservation, though dating from the reign of Richard III. For several hundred years the Bethams have been baptised and buried in Morland Church, some distance to the north of Betham; and though the manor of Betham has long since passed into other hands, small estates still remain in the family dating from that early period. LIVING AGE,

VOL. XXIII,

1171

"foolishly enough I feel it a disgrace to be thought learned, when somebody told a bishop, sitting next to me at dinner one day, that he must talk Greek to that young lady." She studied or rather taught herself miniature-painting with a view to making it a profession, and had so much talent that her first efforts in that line were hailed as full of promise. But there were no art schools for women, nothing to be had in the way of thorough teaching; and charming as many of these likenesses are, they often betray both inaccuracy of drawing and unscientific handling of color.

Her friends one and all encouraged her aspirations, both literary and artistic. "I tell you," said one, "for the thousandth time, that you are full of genius; several paths to fame lie open to you, and if you don't contrive to march through one of them, you deserve to have your mental feet cut off." The writer of these enthusiastic lines, Lady Bedingfield, is one of the most endearing figures in this circle, and her warm, admiring friendship for Matilda Betham, begun in early girlhood, lasted till old age, when she wrote, "You took me for better or for worse, dear Matilda, fifty years ago." Lady Bedingfield was the daughter of Sir C. Jerningham of Cossy, afterwards the wife of Sir Richard Bedingfield, and later she became one of the ladies in waiting to the queen-dowager, widow of George III. This large-hearted and gifted woman, whose charming nature bespeaks itself in every line of her long correspondence with Matilda Betham, was said herself to be a born artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds remarked when looking at her sketches, "It is a pity she cannot be brought up as an artist." But in those days to do more than toy with art or literature was not considered becoming in ladies of position, and in her early letters she says of herself, "I feel something within me, certain latent powers, that, had my destiny left me as you are, single and independent of control, would, I think,