be, now it is printed in The Pulpit." "Yes," said Milly, innocently, "I was so pleased with the editor's letter." And she drew out her little pocket-book, where she carefully treasured the editorial autograph, while Mr. Barton laughed and blushed, and said, "Nonsense, Milly!" create interesting vicissitudes in the game, by taking long - meditated moves with their knights, and subsequently discovering that they have thereby exposed their queen. Chess is a silent game; and the Countess's chat with Milly is in quite an under-tone-probably relating to women's matters that it "You see," she said, giving the would be impertinent for us to listen letter to the Countess, "I am very to; so we will leave Camp Villa, and proud of the praise my husband gets." proceed to Millby Vicarage, where The sermon in question, by the Mr. Farquhar has sat out two other by, was an extremely argumentative guests with whom he has been one on the Incarnation; which, as dining at Mr. Ely's, and is now it was preached to a congregation rather wearying that reverend gennot one of whom had any doubt of tleman by his protracted small-talk. that doctrine, and to whom the Mr. Ely was a tall, dark-haired, Socinians therein confuted were distinguished-looking man of threeas unknown as the Arimaspians, and-thirty. By the laity of Millby was exceedingly well adapted to and its neighbourhood he was trouble and confuse the Shepper- garded as a man of quite remarkable tonian mind. "Ah," said the Countess, returning the editor's letter, "he may well say he will be glad of other sermons from the same source. But I would rather you should publish your sermons in an independent volume, Mr. Barton; it would be so desirable to have them in that shape. For instance, I could send a copy to the Dean of Radbrough. And there is Lord Blarney, whom I knew before he was chancellor. I was a special favourite of his, and you can't think what sweet things he used to say to me. I shall not resist the temptation to write to him one of these days sans façon, and tell him how he onght to dispose of the next vacant living in his gift." Whether Jet the spaniel, being a much more knowing dog than was suspected, wished to express his disapproval of the Countess's last speech, as not accordant with his ideas of wisdom and veracity, I cannot say; but at this moment he jumped off her lap, and turning his back upon her, placed one paw on the fender, and held the other up to warm, as if affecting to abstract himself from the current of conversation. re powers and learning, who must make a considerable sensation in London pulpits and drawing-rooms on his occasional visits to the metropolis; and by his brother clergy he was regarded as a discreet and agreeable fellow. Mr. Ely never got into a warm discussion; he suggested what might be thought, but rarely said what he thought himself; he never let either men or women see that he was laughing at them, and he never gave any one an opportunity of laughing at him. In one thing only he was injudicious. He parted his dark wavy hair down the middle; and as his head was rather flat than otherwise, that style of coiffure was not advantageous to him. Mr. Farquhar, though not a parishioner of Mr. Ely's, was one of his warmest admirers, and thought he would make an unexceptionable sonin-law, in spite of his being of no particular "family." Mr. Farquhar was susceptible on the point of " blood," his own circulating fluid, which animated a short and somewhat flabby person, being, he considered, of very superior quality. 66 By the by," he said, with a certain pomposity counteracted by a But now Mr. Bridmain brought lisp, "what an ath Barton makth of out the chess-board, and Mr. Barton himthelf, about that Bridmain and the accepted his challenge to play a Counteth, ath she callth herthelf. game, with immense satisfaction. After you were gone the other evenThe Rev Amos was very fond of ing, Mithith Farquhar wath telling chess, as most people are who can him the general opinion about them continue throngh many years to in the neighbourhood, and he got quite red and angry. Bleth your thoul, quhar, "and why should thuch be believth the whole thtory about people come here, unleth they had her Polith huthband and hith wonderful ethcapeth; and ath for her-why, he thinkth her perfection, a woman of moth refined feelinth, and no end of thtuff." Mr. Ely smiled. "Some people would say our friend Barton was not the best judge of refinement. Perhaps the lady flatters him a little, and we men are susceptible. She goes to Shepperton church every Sunday-drawn there, let us suppose, by Mr. Barton's eloquence." Pshaw," said Mr. Farquhar: "Now to my mind you have only to look at that woman to thee what she ith-throwing her eyth about when she comth into church, and drething in a way to attract attention. I should thay, she'th tired of her brother Bridmain, and looking out for another brother with a thronger family likeneth. Mithith Farquhar ith very fond of Mithith Barton, and ith quite disthrethed that she should athothiate with thuch a woman, tho she attacked him on the thubject purpothly. But I tell her ith of no uthe, with a pig-headed fellow like him. Barton'th well-meaning enough, but tho contheited. I've left off giving him my advithe." Mr. Ely smiled inwardly and said to himself, "What a punishment!" But to Mr. Farquhar he said, "Barton might he more judicious, it must be confessed." He was getting tired, and did not want to develope the subject. 66 Why, nobody vithit-th them but the Bartonth," continued Mr. Far particular reathonth for preferring a neighbourhood where they are not known? Pooh? it lookth bad on the very fathe of it. You called on them, now; how did you find them?" "O-Mr. Bridmain strikes me as a common sort of man, who is making an effort to seem wise and well bred. He comes down on one tremendously with political information, and seems knowing about the king of the French. The Countess is certainly a handsome woman, but she puts on the grand air a little too powerfully. Woodcock was immensely taken with her, and insisted on his wife's calling on her, and asking her to dinner; but I think Mrs. Woodcock turned restive after the first visit, and wouldn't invite her again." "Ha, ha! Woodcock hath alwayth a thoft place in hith heart for a pretty fathe. It-'th odd how he came to marry that plain woman, and no fortune either." CHAPTER IV. I am by no means sure that if the good people of Millby had known the truth about the Countess Czerlaski, they would not have been considerably disappointed to find that it was very far from being as bad as they imagined. Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black, than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green, to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion. Besides, think of all the virtuous declamation, all the penetrating observation which had been built up entirely on the fundamental position that the Countess was a very objectionable person indeed, and which would be utterly overturned and nullified by the destruction of that premiss. Mrs. Phipps, the banker's wife, and Mrs. Landor, the attorney's wife, had invested part of their reputation for acuteness in the supposi tion that Mr. Bridmain was not the Countess's brother. Moreover, Miss Phipps was conscious that if the Countess was not a disreputable person, she, Miss Phipps, had no compensating superiority in virtue to set against the other lady's manifest superiority in personal charms. Miss Phipps's stumpy figure and unsuccessful attire, instead of looking down from a mount of virtue with an auréole round its head, would then be seen on the same level and in the same light as the Countess Czerlaski's Diana-like form and well-chosen drapery. Miss Phipps, for her part, didn't like dressing for effect-she had always avoided that style of appearance, which was calculated to create a sensation. Then what amusing inuendoes of the Millby gentlemen over their wine would be entirely frustrated and reduced to nought, if you had told them that the Countess had really been guilty of no misdemeanours which need exclude her from strictly respectable society; that her husband had been the veritable Count Czerlaski, who had had wonderful escapes, as she said, and who, as she did not say, but as was said in certain circulars once folded by her fair hands, had subsequently given dancing lessons in the metropolis; that Mr. Bridman was neither more nor less than her half-brother, who, by unimpeached integrity and industry, had won a partnership in a silk-manufactory, and thereby a moderate fortune, that enabled him to retire, as you see, to study politics, the weather, and the art of conversation, at his leisure. Mr. Bridmain, in fact, quadragenarian bachelor as he was, felt extremely well pleased to receive his sister in her widowhood, and to shine in the reflected light of her beauty and title. Every man who is not a monster, a mathematician, or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other. Mr. Bridmain had put his neck under the yoke of his handsome sister, and though his soul was a very little one-of the smallest description indeed he would not have ventured to call it his own. He might be slightly recalcitrant now and then, as is the habit of longeared pachyderms, under the thong of the fair Countess's tongue; but there seemed little probability that he would ever get his neck loose. Still, a bachelor's heart is an outlying fortress that some fair enemy may any day take either by storm or stratagem; and there was always the possibility that Mr. Bridman's first nuptials might occur before the Countess was quite sure of her second. As it was, however, he submitted to all his sister's caprices, never grumbled because her dress and her maid formed a considerable item beyond her own little income of sixty pounds per annum, and consented to lead with her a migratory life, as personages on the debatable ground between aristocracy and commonalty, instead of settling in some spot where his five hundred a-year might have won him the definite dignity of a parochial magnate. The Countess had her views in choosing a quiet provincial place like Millby. After three years of widowhood, she had brought her feelings to contemplate giving a successor to her lamented Czerlaski, whose fine whiskers, fine air, and romantic fortunes had won her heart ten years ago, when, as pretty Caroline Bridmain, in the full bloom of five-and-twenty, she was governess to Lady Porter's daughters, whom he initiated into the mysteries of the pas de bas, and the lancers' quadrilles. She had had seven years of sufficiently happy matrimony with Czerlaski, who had taken her to Paris and Germany, and introduced her there to many of his old friends with large titles and small fortunes. So that the fair Caroline had had considerable experience of life, and had gathered therefrom, not, indeed, any very ripe and comprehensive wisdom, but much external polish, and certain practical conclusions of a very decided kind. One of these conclusions was, that there were things more solid in life than fine whiskers and a title, and that, in accepting a second husband, she would regard these items as quite subordinate to a carriage and a settlement. Now she had ascertained, by tentative residences, that the kind of bite she was angling for was difficult to be met with at watering-places, which were already preoccupied with_abundance of angling beauties, and were chiefly stocked with men whose whis kers might be dyed, and whose incomes were still more problematic; so she had determined on trying a neighbourhood where people were extremely well acquainted with each other's affairs, and where the women were mostly ill-dressed and ugly. Mr. Bridmain's slow brain had adopted his sister's views, and it seemed to him that a woman so handsome and distinguished as the Countess must certainly make a match that might lift himself into the region of county celebrities, and give him at least a sort of cousinship to the quarter-sessions. All this, which was the simple truth, would have seemed extremely flat to the gossips of Millby, who had made up their minds to something much more exciting. There was nothing here so very detestable. It is true, the Countess was a little vain, a little ambitious, a little selfish, a little shallow and frivolous, a little given to white lies. But who considers such slight blemishes, such moral pimples as these, disqualifications for entering into the most respectable society? Indeed, the severest ladies in Millby would have been perfectly aware that these characteristics would have created no wide distinction between the Countess Czerlaski and themselves; and since it was clear there was a wide distinction-why, it must lie in the possession of some vices from which they were undeniably free. Hence it came to pass, that Millby respectability refused to recognise the Countess Czerlaski, in spite of her assiduous church-going, and the deep disgust she was known to have expressed at the extreme paucity of the congregations on Ash-Wednesdays. So she began to feel that she had miscalculated the advantages of a neighbourhood where people are well acquainted with each other's private affairs. Under these circumstances, you will imagine how welcome was the perfect credence and admiration she met with from Mr. and Mrs. Barton. She had been especially irritated by Mr. Ely's behaviour to her; she felt sure that he was not in the least struck with her beauty, that he quizzed her conversation, and that he spoke of her with a sneer. A woman always knows where she is utterly powerless, and shuns a coldly satirical eye as she would shun a gorgon. And she was especially eager for clerical notice and friendsbip, not merely because that is quite the most respectable countenance to be obtained in society, but because she really cared about religious matters, and had an uneasy sense that she was not altogether safe in that quarter. She had serious intentions of becoming quite pious— without any reserves-when she had once got her carriage and settlement. Let us do this one sly trick, says Ulysses to Neoptolemus, and we will be perfectly honest ever after— ἀλλ' ἡδὺ γὰρ τοι κτῆμα τῆς νίκης λαβεῖν τόλμα δίκαιοι δ' αὖθις ἐκφανούμεθα. The Countess did not quote Sophocles, but she said to herself, "Only this little bit of pretence and vanity, and then I will be quite good, and make myself quite safe for another world." And as she had by no means such fine taste and insight in theological teaching as in costume, the Rev. Amos Barton seemed to her a man not only of learning-that is always understood with a clergyman-but of much power as a spiritual director. As for Milly, the Countess really loved her as well as the preoccupied state of her affections would allow. For you have already perceived that there was one being to whom the Countess was absorbingly devoted, and to whose desires she made everything else subservient-namely, Caroline Czerlaski, née Bridmain. Thus there was really not much affectation in her sweet speeches and attentions to Mr. and Mrs. Barton. Still, their friendship by no means adequately represented the object she had in view when she came to Millby, and it had been for some time clear to her that she must suggest a new change of residence to her brother. The thing we look forward to often comes to pass, but never precisely in the way we have imagined to ourselves. The Countess did actually leave Camp Villa before many mouths were past, but under circumstances which had not at all entered into her contemplation. (To be continued.) MRS. BARRETT BROWNING-AURORA THERE is some necessity, we think, at the present time, of applying the rules of criticism to the critics; for it cannot be denied that many who wear the robes of Aristarchus are no more entitled to the style of literary censors, than is the American Lynch to the title of a legitimate judge. Nothing can more forcibly demonstrate the anarchy which prevails in the republic of letters, than the fact that persons of narrow education, limited views, confined sympathies, and inordinate prejudice, take upon themselves, every day, without hesitation, the responsibilities of the reviewer; and under cover of the editorial "we," pronounce judgment upon the efforts of their superiors. The complaint, no doubt, is an old one, but the evil has been steadily increasing. Formerly critics were scarce, and, in consequence, as well known as mastiffs in a country parish. Their deep bow-wow, even when they were unnecessarily surly, had something in it of power and significance: now, the traveller cannot pass through a village without having a whole pack of curs yelping vociferously at his heels. Powerless to bite, they are numerous enough to annoy; and they seem to consider, perhaps with reason, that incessant barking is an indispensable condition of their existence. Instead of remaining quiet under shelter of the peat-stack or haycock, as well-conditioned animals should do when nobody is attempting to molest them, they dash forward frantically on the advent of each newcomer on the highway, and expend à monstrous deal of unavailing breath before they slink back to their accustamed lurking-places. Possibly, upon more minute acquaintance, some of them may prove to be rather amiable tykes in their way-fellows who attack the passenger more from exuberance of spirits than from malice, and who think that there is something wonderfully clever in the utterance of their canine music. But there are others whose existence is a perpetual snarl who have snarled from the day they were littered till now; and who LEIGH. will continue to snarl until they are pitched ignominiously into a quarryhole with a stone of reasonable weight suspended to their necks. Subaqueous snarling we believe to be impossible, else doubtless they would expend their last energies in snarling at the tadpoles. When a nuisance becomes so universal as this, most people cease to regard it seriously. Men of strong nerves and equable temperament stride along without regarding their clamorous following, though those of weaker nerves are sometimes startled and disturbed. If indeed there was a common feeling in the pack-if a plausible reason could be assigned why some five-and-twenty animals of different breeds should combine in a general yelp-if it could be shown that your hat was of such a texture or so long in use that they all took offence at it, or that your coat was so monstrously bad that they deemed it their duty to protest against it, or that you walked along the road with the air of a ticket-of-leave man or a thimble-rigger, their assault might, in a certain measure, be justified. But they have no common motive. One barks at you because he objects to your hat; another, because your breeches are not to his liking; a third, because he thinks you supercilious; a fourth, because you righteously bestowed a kick upon the carcass of a cousin of his own; a fifth, because you come from a different parish; a sixth, because he considers barking a proof of genius; and a seventh, because from puppydom upwards he has had a tendency towards hereditary hydrophobia. Each has a separate motive for dislike, though the cry be general; and even the possession of good qualities will not protect you from their assault. Where there is envy, a very small matter indeed will serve to elicit hatred. Witness the instance of the Athenian, who asked Aristides to inscribe his own name on the shell of banishment, because he was weary of hearing him denominated "the just." To criticism, however stringent, |