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bus; the honours which had made him sad, had made her cross. I did not care; I had never abbreviated her name; so as it was the May of a London summer, I turned for consolation towards a fire bright enough to roast St Lawrence. This movement necessitated a glance towards the card-rack, and I observed that its prominent features were " At Homes" from L. House and D. House, and a "requests the honour" from the Dowager Lady C. "Ah! ah!" said I to myself, " your popular author is ever a diner out."

I trust my friend Fosbrook was an habitual one; or at least, that he did not affect to be "L'Amphitryon ou l'on dine." The solid joint and solid pudding of St Pancras had been ill-exchanged, in his menu, for the unapproachable filets and fricandeaux of St George's; and hot sauterne and iced Lafitte were abominable substitutes for the old Madeira and old port of old times. By the time the cloth and the lady were withdrawn, I was as much out of humour as Mrs Fosbrook with popular authorship. To judge by the lowering brow of my host, his feelings were tuned to as doleful a key as my own. As we were tete-a-tete, I ventured an apostrophe to the memory of the Gower-street port; it was a fortunate digression; the butler was summoned; the cork squeaked beneath the screw, and Richard was himself again!

"You have an excellent house here, Fosbrook!"

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"Why, yes;-the situation is good, and the distribution better; yet somehow or other, even in my perfection of a gentleman's room,' I always regret my Crusoe's cave in Gower-street. There I was never interrupted by importunate idlers; my books ungilt and unprisoned behind the glittering wires of a library, came at my call; in short, I was able to read, and think, and write, as I liked."

"And as others liked," said I, courteously. "My return to England has discovered to me an old friend in the most popular author of the day."

Fosbrook literally shuddered at the word. "No more of that, an thou lovest me!" exclaimed he, in a tone of acute sensibility. Keep the name for the first dog you wish to see hanged."

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"Pho! pho!" said I, "the mere cant of affected modesty! You have won your laurels bravely; do not wear them like a coward. They were long, it is true, in putting forth their verdant honours; but now it would seem as Birnam wood were come to Dunsinane.””

Fosbrook shook his head despondingly; and his whole air was so completely that of Matthews's admirable hypochondriac, that, spite of myself, I burst into a hearty fit of laughter. By good luck it proved contagious, and having roared and shouted "a qui

mieux mieux," a happy tone of confidence was immediately established between us.

"The fact is, my dear fellow," resumed Fosbrook, lowering his voice," that I have led the life of a galley slave since I came to my title."

"Title ?"

"Of popular author! a title good for nothing but to expose one without redress to the insolence of every scribbler whose pen is the hannel of his venom. No one presumes to insult a gentleman, or to tell a man that he is a fool; but a popular author is the property of the public, its goods, its chattels, its ox, its ass, its every thing!'—a culprit stuck up in the pillory of celebrity to be pelted by all the ragamuffins of the times."

"And yet I can remember your eyes being upturned towards the Temple of Fame, as a devotee gazes upon the sanctuary." "Ay, ay; I looked at it through a telescope:

''Tis distance lends enchantment to the view"

and the farther the better! I had not then assumed the foolscap uniform turned up with ink;' I had not donned the livery of the booksellers to fetch and carry sing song up and down!' I published, it is true, but what then? The sin lay dormant between you and me and the press! I lived secure from criticism: not a reptile of a magazine deigned to tickle me with its puny antennæ. My wife, however angry, borrowed no sarcasms from the leading reviews I found not Jeffrey's satire on her lips,-I slept the next night well-was free-was happy.' On the strength of my uncut pages, I passed for a literary man, in my own select circle; my family took me for a genius, and my servants for a conjuror ;-but now-my pages and myself are cut together."

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My dear Dick!" said I soothingly, for he had really talked himself into a fit of irritation, "remember how often and how philosophically you have declared yourself indifferent to the award of criticism."

"There you have me on the hip. My wife's family, and all the generation of bores at that, my former end of the town, are constantly reminding me that it is idle to value public opinion, since I have often proved to them that the world is an overgrown booby; to which I can only reply, like Benedict, that When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live to be married.' When I wrote the public down an ass, I little expected to become a popular author!"

"But after all," I observed, "these are mere trivial vexations,

compared with the glories of the daily incense burnt upon your altars, of the solid gains achieved by your exertions."

"I will show some of the daily incense," said Fosbrook, opening his pocket-book; "unfortunately it is made to be read first and burnt afterwards. It is a paragraph from a morning paper." Lege, Dick, lege."

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man.

"We copy the following interesting intelligence from the Newcastle Mercury. Mr Fosbrook the popular author. We are happy to be the first to congratulate our townsmen upon the near and dear claim we can boast upon the parentage of this celebrated Richard Toppletoe, formerly a master tailor in North Lane, but at the period of his decease a much respected member of our corporation, proves to have been his maternal grandfather. Many still surviving among us retain a lively remembrance of the full-buckled flaxen wig and brocaded waistcoat of old Toppletoe; and there can be little doubt that from this eccentric knight of the shears, Mr Fosbrook derives much of his originality of mind, his baptismal name, and private fortune.'”

"Very provoking, certainly," said I, perceiving that some comment was unavoidable.

“Till I read that cursed paragraph," observed Fosbrook, “I had always believed and proclaimed myself to be of irreproachable descent, and the heir of an old Northumbrian family; had I never become a popular author, I should have remained in ignorance that I had a Toppletoe for my mother! But listen to another of these precious bulletins of the state of my reputation.

"Bow Street. Mr Fosbrook.-Another instance of the irregularities of genius came this morning before the attention of the bench. The above popular author, returning from a deep carouse with some brother wits,-some choice spirits, who appear to have been partial to proof spirits,-chancing to unite the rampart valour of Othello with the disastrous plight of Cassio, fell into an outrageous affray with the guardians of the night-( Guardians! I wish they would make her a ward in Chancery!' ejaculated Dick,) and was at length victoriously lodged in the watchhouse. Our worthy chief magistrate considerately gave this delicate case a hearing in his private room; and after a few pertinent (qy. im?) observations to the delinquent, upon the respect due to public decency, even from the genus irritabile, he fined him five shillings, and dismissed him with costs; judging, probably, that Mr Fosbrook had already received poetical justice in the shape of two black eyes.'" the night

"Very provoking," said I again. "And did you pass in the watchhouse?"

"Not I!--I appeared before Sir Richard as a witness in favour of an Irish applewoman, whom I had caught the parish beadle in the act of maltreating, by virtue of some Street Bill. Unfortunately, I was recognised by some dirty reporter, who doubled his morning's pay by compounding this scurrilous attack."

"But of course you remonstrated with the Editor ?"

"I did; and my very forbearing letter produced a second paragraph, headed Mr Fosbrook. We are authorized by this gentleman to state that he did not appear before Sir Richard Birnie with two black eyes. "

"Well, well!" said I, "these idle slanders, if they filch from you your good name, do not steal the trash from your purse. Think of the solid profits, my dear Dick."

"I do, and with regret; for they are all gone. Every poor relation (Toppletoes in particular), and every literary acquaintance I had in the world, gave me the preference of their first application for a loan, on the second edition of my last work; nor does there exist a literary institution, or an establishment for the encouragement of the Fine Arts, for which my guineas have not been peremptorily claimed. Meanwhile, my law has long since left me in the lurch, and my father-in-law abhors me because 1 play shorts. He has persuaded my wife to send the boys to school, lest I should undermine their morals; for the old gentleman holds that all modern authors are atheists."

"But what is become of your orthodox friend, the Dean of - ?" "We have not been on speaking terms these six months: he is persuaded he can detect my hand in the anatomization of his Emancipation pamphlet in the new review."

"And Lorimer, our college chum ?"

"Has basely deserted my cause; he goes about, with his hand in his breeches' pocket, like a crocodile,' whispering that I have been puffed beyond my strength; that I have no stamina for the tug of war, and shall run away, a la Goderich, at the first shot. All my old friends affect to suppose that I have risen above them; and since I have been noticed by half a dozen rhyming Lords, my wife's relations say I am grown fine, and have given over inviting me; while Sophia, as if in retribution, will never visit half a mile from Russell-square,-the land of ancestors!-She is gone there to-night."

"Mrs Fosbrook gone out!" I exclaimed. "Then come with me to the Opera; we shall be in time for Brocard."

"Willingly, I have a silver ticket."

We rose from table; the butler was hastily summoned, and

entered with a huge and portentous packet in either hand. Dick broke the seal of the largest, and read aloud

"Albemarle Street.

"Dear Sir,-I beg to forward you the Number of the Review, which appeared this day, and which contains some strictures on your new work. Permit me to say that I consider them highly illiberal, and that I have always thought the Editor an envious little man.

"I have the honour to be,"

&c. &c. &c.

"Don't read the article, my dear Dick. Pray don't. It will only make you bilious."

"I will not," he replied, resolutely tossing it aside. -call a coach."

"Martin!

"I beg your pardon, Sir," replied the man, presenting the other pistol-packet I would say," Mr Colburn's printer has been waiting impatiently these two hours. He says it is the 24th of the month."

"The devil!" exclaimed the unhappy Fosbrook in dismay. "Well, my dear fellow, you must go and see Brocard without me; it is not the first time my patience has been put to the proof." "

I left him alone with his glory; but sympathy forbade my attempting the Opera. I went home to bed; where, thanks to Dick's deplorable destiny, or deplorable claret, I had an excruciating nightmare ;—and the most appalling vision suggested by its influence, was, that I had attained to the honours of a popular author!

New Monthly Magazine.

HART-LEAP WELL.*

Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road that leads from Richmond to Askrigg. Its name is derived from a remarkable Chase, the memory of which is preserved by the monuments spoken of in the second Part of the following Poem, which monuments do now exist as I have there described them.

THE knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor
With the slow motion of a summer's cloud;

He turned aside towards a vassal's door,
And "bring another horse!" he cried aloud.

* This poem was a great favourite with Mr Hazlitt.

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