L

I

reading. I may have undergone ago- | dinners, and for the conversation nies, you see, but every man who has which did not take place there, is been bred at an English public school this tolerable press practice, legitimate comes away from a private interview joking, or honorable warfare? with Dr. Birch with a calm, even have not the honor to know my next a smiling face. And this is not im- door neighbor, but I make no doubt possible, when you are prepared. that he receives his friends at dinner; You screw your courage up-you go I see his wife and children pass conthrough the business. You come stantly; I even know the carriages of back and take your seat on the form, some of the people who call upon showing not the least symptom of un- him, and could tell their names. Now, easiness or of previous unpleasantries. suppose his servants were to tell mine But to be caught suddenly up, and what the doings are next door, who whipped in the bosom of your family comes to dinner, what is eaten and to sit down to breakfast, and cast said, and I were to publish an account your innocent eye on a paper, and of these transactions in a newspaper, find, before you are aware, that "The I could assuredly get money for the Saturday Monitor or "Black Mon-report; but ought I to write it, and day Instructor" has hoisted you and what would you think of me for doing is laying on that is indeed a trial. so? | Or perhaps the family has looked at And suppose, Mr. Saturday Rethe dreadful paper beforehand, and viewer you censor morum, you who weakly tries to hide it. "Where is pique yourself (and justly and hon'The Instructor,' or 'The Monitor'? orably in the main) upon your say you. "Where is that paper?" character of gentleman, as well of says mamma to one of the young la- writer, suppose, not that you yourdies. Lucy hasn't it. Fanny hasn't self invent and indite absurd twaddle seen it. Emily thinks that the gov- about gentlemen's private meetings erness has it. At last,out it is brought, and transactions, but pick this wretchthat awful paper! Papa is amazing-ed garbage out of a New York street, ly tickled with the article on Thom- and hold it up for your readers' son; thinks that show-up of Johnson amusement-don't you think, my is very lively; and now heaven be friend, that you might have been betgood to us! he has come to the ter employed? Here, is my "Saturday critique on himself - "Of all the Review," and in an American paper rubbish which we have had from Mr. subsequently sent to me, I light, asTomkins, we do protest and vow tonished, on an account of the dinthat this last cartload is " &c. Ah, ners of my friend and publisher, poor Tomkins! - but most of all, which are described as tremendously ah! poor Mrs. Tomkins, and poor heavy," of the conversation (which Emily, and Fanny, and Lucy, who does not take place), and of the guests have to sit by and see paterfamilias assembled at the table. I am informed put to the torture! that the proprietor of "The Cornhill" and the host on these occasions, is " a very good man, but totally unread; " and that on my asking him whether Dr. Johnson was dining behind the screen, he said, "God bless my soul, my dear sir, there's no person by the name of Johnson here, nor any one behind the screen," and that a roar of laughter cut him short. I am informed by the same New York correspondent that I have touched up

Now, on this eventful Saturday, I did not cry, because it was not so much the Editor as the Publisher of "The Cornhill Magazine "who was brought out for a dressing; and it is wonderful how gallantly one bears the misfortunes of one's friends. That a writer should be taken to task about his books, is fair, and he must abide the praise or the censure. But that a publisher should be criticised for his

conversation for "The New York Times"!

Attack our books, Mr. Correspondent, and welcome. They are fair subjects for just censure or praise. But woe be to you, if you allow private rancors or animosities to influ

a contributor's article; that I once said to a literary gentleman, who was proudly pointing to an anonymous article as his writing, "Ah! I thought I recognized your hoof in it." I am told by the same authority that "The Cornhill Magazine "shows symptoms of being on the wane," and hav-ence you in the discharge of your pubing sold nearly a hundred thousand copies, he (the correspondent) "should think forty thousand was now about the mark." Then the graceful writer passes on to the dinners, at which it appears the Editor of the Magazine is the great gun, and comes out with all the geniality in his power."

lic duty. In the little court where you are paid to sit as judge, as critic, you owe it to your employers, to your conscience, to the honor of your calling, to deliver just sentences; and you shall have to answer to heaven for your dealings, as surely as my Lord Chief Justice on the Bench. The dignity of letters, the honor of the literary calling, the slights put by haughty and unthinking people upon literary men, don't we hear outcries upon these subjects raised daily? As dear Sam Johnson sits behind the screen, too proud to show his threadbare coat and patches among the more prosperous brethren of his trade, there is no want of dignity in him, in that homely image of labor ill rewarded, genius as yet unrecognized, independence sturdy and uncomplaining. But Mr. Nameless, behind the publisher's screen uninvited, peering at the com

Now suppose this charming intelligence is untrue? Suppose the publisher (to recall the words of my friend the Dublin actor of last month) is a gentleman to the full as well informed as those whom he invites to his table? Suppose he never made the remark,.beginning "God bless my soul, my dear sir, dear sir," &c., nor any thing resembling it? Suppose nobody roared with laughing? Suppose the Editor of "The Cornhill Magazine" never "touched up" one single line of the contribution which bears "marks of his hand"? Suppose he never said to any literary gentleman, "I recog-pany and the meal, catching up scraps nized your hoof" in any periodical whatever? Suppose the 40,000 subscribers, which the writer to New York "considered to be about the mark," should be between 90,000 and 100,000 (and as he will have figures, there they are)? Suppose this back-door gossip should be utterly blundering and untrue, would any one wonder? Ah! if we had only enjoyed the happiness to number this writer among the contributors to our Magazine, what a cheerfulness and easy confidence his presence would impart to our meetings! He would find that poor Mr. Smith" had heard that recondite anecdote of Dr. Johnson behind the screen; and as for "the great gun of those banquets," with what geniality should not I "come out" if I had an amiable companion close by me, dotting down my

of the jokes, and noting down the guests' behavior and conversation,what a figure his is! Allons, Mr. Nameless! Put up your notebook; walk out of the hall; and leave gentlemen alone who would be private, and wish you no harm.

TUNBRIDGE TOYS.

I WONDER whether those little silver pencil-cases with a movable almanac at the butt-end are still favorite implements with boys, and whether peddlers still hawk them about the country? the about the country? Are there peddlers and hawkers still, or are rustics and children grown too sharp to deal with them? Those pencil-cases, as far as my memory serves me, were not

I certainly enjoyed the case at first a good deal, and amused myself with twiddling round the movable calendar. But this pleasure wore off. The jewel, as I said, was not paid for, and Hawker, a large and violent boy, was exceedingly unpleasant as a creditor. His constant remark was, are you going to pay me that threeand-sixpence ? What sneaks your

"When

relations must be? They come to see you. You go out to them on Saturdays and Sundays, and they never give you any thing! Don't tell me, you little humbug!" and so forth. The truth is that my relations were respectable; but my parents were making a tour in Scotland; and my friends in London, whom I used to go and see, were most kind to me, certainly, but somehow never tipped me. That term, of May to August, 1823, passed in agonies then, in consequence of my debt to Hawker. What was the pleasure of a calendar pencil-case in comparison with the

of much use. The screw upon which the movable almanac turned was constantly getting loose. The I of the table would work from its moorings, under Tuesday or Wednesday, as the case might be, and you would find, on examination, that Th. or W. was the 23 of the month (which was absurd on the face of the thing), and in a word your cherished pencil-case an utterly unreliable time-keeper. Nor was this a matter of wonder. Consider the position of a pencil-case in a boy's pocket. You had hardbake in it; marbles, kept in your purse when the money was all gone; your mother's purse, knitted so fondly and supplied with a little bit of gold, long since-prodigal little son! scattered amongst the swine-I mean amongst brandy-balls, open tarts, three-cornered puffs, and similar abominations. You had a top and string; a knife; a piece of cobbler's wax; two or three bullets; a Little Warbler; and I, for my part, remember, for a considerable period, a brass-doubt and torture of mind occasioned barrelled pocket-pistol (which would fire beautifully, for with it I shot off a button from Butt Major's jacket); with all these things, and ever so many more, clinking and rattling in your pockets, and your hands, of course, keeping them in perpetual movement, how could you expect your movable almanac not to be twisted out of its place now and again - your pencil-case to be bent your licorice water not to leak out of your bottle over the cobbler's wax, your bull's-eyes not to ram up the lock and barrel of your pistol, and so

|

by the sense of the debt, and the constant reproach in that fellow's scowling cycs and gloomy, coarse reminders? How was I to pay off such a debt out of sixpence a week? ludicrous ! Why did not some one come to see me, and tip me? Ah! my dear sir, if you have any little friends at school, go and see them, and do the natural thing by them. You won't miss the sovereign. You don't know what a blessing it will be to them. Don't fancy they are too old try 'em. And they will remember you, and bless you in future days; and their gratitude shall accompany your dreary In the month of June, thirty-seven after-life; and they shall meet you years ago, I bought one of those kindly when thanks for kindness arc pencil-cases from a boy whom I shall scant. O mercy! shall I ever forget call Hawker, and who was in my that sovereign you gave me, Captain form. Is he dead? Is he a million- Bob? or the agonies of being in debt naire? Is he a bankrupt now? He to Hawker? In that very term, a was an immense screw at school, and relation of mine was going to India. I believe to this day that the value I actually was fetched from school in of the thing for which I owed and order to take leave of him. I am eventually paid three-and-sixpence, afraid I told Hawker of this circumwas in reality not one-and-nine. stance. I own I speculated upon my

forth?

Away I ran and paid Hawker his three-and-six. Ouf! what a weight it was off my mind! (He was a Norfolk boy, and used to go home from Mrs. Nelson's "Bell Inn," Aldgate

but that is not to the point.) The next morning, of course, we were an hour before the time. I and another boy shared a hackney-coach; twoand-six; porter for putting luggage on coach, threepence. I had no more money of my own left. Rasherwell, my companion, went into the "Boltin-Tun coffee-room, and had a good breakfast. I couldn't; because, though I had five and twenty shillings of my parents' money, I had none of my own, you see.

friend's giving me a pound. A pound? Pooh! A relation going to India, and deeply affected at parting from his darling kinsman, might give five pounds to the dear fellow! There was Hawker when I came back of course there he was. As he looked in my scared face, his turned livid with rage. He muttered curses, terrible from the lips of so young a boy. My relation, about to My relation, about to cross the ocean to fill a lucrative appointment, asked me with much interest about my progress at school, heard me construe a passage of Eutropius, the pleasing Latin work on which I was then engaged; gave me a God bless you, and sent me back to school; upon my word of honor, without so much as a half-breakfast, and still remember how crown! It is all very well, my dear sir, to say that boys contract habits of expecting tips from their parents' friends, that they become avaricious, and so forth. Avaricious! fudge! Boys contract habits of tart and toffee eating, which they do not carry into after-life. On the contrary, I wish I did like 'em. What raptures of pleasure one could have now for five shillings, if one could but pick it off the pastrycook's tray! No. If you have any little friends at school, out with your half-crowns, my friend, and impart to those little ones the little fleeting joys of their age.

Well, then. At the beginning of August, 1823, Bartlemy-tide holidays came, and I was to go to my parents, who were at Tunbridge Wells. My place in the coach was taken by my tutor's servants “Bolt - in - Tun,” Fleet Street, seven o'clock in the morning, was the word. My Tutor, the Rev. Edward P, to whom I hereby present my best compliments, had a parting interview with me: gave me my little account for my governor: the remaining part of the coach-hire; five shillings for my own expenses; and some five and twenty shillings on an old account which had been overpaid, and was to be restored to my family.

I certainly intended to go without

strongly I had that resolution in my mind. But there was that hour to wait. A beautiful August morning -I am very hungry. There is Rasherwell" tucking" away in the coffeeroom. I pace the street, as sadly almost as if I had been coming to school, not going thence. I turn into a court by mere chance-I vow it was by mere chance-and there I see a coffee-shop with a placard in the window, Coffee, Twopence. Round of buttered toast, Twopence. And here am I, hungry, penniless, with five and twenty shillings of my parents' money in my pocket.

What would you have done? You see I had had my money, and spent it in that pencil-case affair. The five and twenty shillings were a trust by me to be handed over.

But then would my parents wish their only child to be actually without breakfast? Having this money, and being so hungry, so very hungry, mightn't I take ever so little ? Mightn't I at home eat as much as I chose.

Well, I went into the coffee-shop and spent fourpence. I remember the taste of the coffee and toast to this day -a peculiar, muddy, not-sweetenough, most fragrant coffee - a rich, rancid, yet not-buttered-enough, deli

cious toast. The waiter had nothing. | for what we know: and even for that At any rate, fourpence I know was sin he was promptly caned by the the sum I spent. And the hunger beadle. The bamboo was ineffectual appeased, I got on the coach a guilty to cane that reprobate's bad courses being. out of him. From pitch-and-toss he At the last stage, what is its proceeded to man-slaughter if necessaname? I have forgotten in seven ry: to highway robbery; to Tyburn and thirty years, there is an inn and the rope there. Ah! heaven be with a little green and trees before it; thanked, my parents' heads are still and by the trees there is an open car- above the grass, and mine still out of riage. It is our carriage. Yes, there the noose. are Prince and Blucher, the horses; and my parents in the carriage. Oh! how I had been counting the days until this one came! Oh! how happy had I been to see them yesterday! But there was that fourpence. All All the journey down the toast had choked me, and the coffee poisoned me.

I was in such a state of remorse about the fourpence, that I forgot the maternal joy and caresses, the tender paternal voice. I pull out the twenty-four shillings and eightpence with a trembling hand.

"Here's your money," I gasp out, "which Mr. Powes you, all but fourpence. I owed three-and-sixpence to Hawker out of my money for a pencil-case, and I had none left, and I took fourpence of yours, and had some coffee at a shop."

I suppose I must have been choking whilst uttering this confession.

My dear boy," says the governor, "why didn't you go and breakfast at the hotel?

"He must be starved," says my

mother.

I had confessed; I had been a prodigal; I had been taken back to my parents' arms again. It was not a very great crime as yet, or a very long career of prodigality; but don't we know that a boy who takes a pin which is not his own will take a thousand pounds when occasion serves, bring his parents' gray heads with sorrow to the grave, and carry his own to the gallows? Witness the career of Dick Idle, upon whom our friend Mr. Sala has been discoursing. Dick only began by playing pitch-and toss on a tombstone: playing fair,

As I look up from my desk, I see Tunbridge Wells Common and the rocks, the strange familiar place which I remember forty years ago. Boys saunter over the green with stumps and cricket-bats. and cricket-bats. Other boys gallop by on the riding-master's hacks. I protest it is Cramp, Riding Master, as it used to be in the reign of George IV., and that Centaur Cramp must be at least a hundred years old. Yonder comes a footman with a bundle of novels from the library. Are they as good as our novels? Oh! how delightful they were! Shades of Valancour, awful ghost of Manfroni, how I shudder at your appearance! Sweet image of Thaddeus of Warsaw, how often has this almost infantile hand tried to depict you in a Polish cap and richly embroidered tights! And as for Corinthian Tom in light bluo pantaloons and Hessians, and Jerry Hawthorn from the country, can all the fashion, can all the splendor of real life which these eyes have subsequently beheld, can all the wit I have heard or read in later times, compare with your fashion, with your brilliancy, with your delightful grace, and sparkling vivacious rattle?

Who knows? They may have kept those very books at the library still

I

at the well-remembered library on the Pantiles, where they sell that delightful, useful Tunbridge ware. will go and see. I went my way to the Pantiles, the queer little oldworld Pantiles, where, a hundred years since, so much good company came to take its pleasure. Is it possible that in the past century, gentlefolks of the first rank (as I read lately in a