In a few hours Harley reached the inn where he proposed breakfasting; but the fulness of his heart would not suffer him to eat a morsel. He walked out on the road, and gaining a little height, stood gazing on the quarter he had left. He looked for his wonted prospect, his fields, his woods, and his hills; they were lost in the distant clouds! He pencilled them on the clouds, and bade them farewell with a sigh!

Peter stood at the door. We have mentioned this could not work, and it went against my stomach to faithful fellow formerly. Harley's father had taken work ever after. I was seized with a jail-fever at the him up an orphan, and saved him from being cast on time of the assizes being in the county where I lived; the parish; and he had ever since remained in the for I was always curious to get acquainted with the service of him and of his son. Harley shook him by felons, because they are commonly fellows of much the hand as he passed, smiling, as if he had said: 'I mirth and little thought, qualities I had ever an esteem will not weep.' He sprung hastily into the chaise that for. In the height of this fever, Mr Harley, the house waited for him; Peter folded up the step. My dear where I lay took fire, and burnt to the ground; I was master,' said he, shaking the solitary lock that hung carried out in that condition, and lay all the rest of my on either side of his head, 'I have been told as how illness in a barn. I got the better of my disease, howLondon is a sad place.' He was choked with the ever, but I was so weak that I spat blood whenever I thought, and his benediction could not be heard. But attempted to work. I had no relation living that I it shall be heard, honest Peter! where these tears will knew of, and I never kept a friend above a week when add to its energy. I was able to joke; I seldom remained above six months in a parish, so that I might have died before I had found a settlement in any: thus I was forced to beg my bread, and a sorry trade I found it, Mr Harley. I told all my misfortunes truly, but they were seldom believed; and the few who gave me a half-penny as they passed, did it with a shake of the head, and an injunction not to trouble them with a long story. In short, I found that people do not care to give alms without some security for their money; a wooden leg or a withered arm is a sort of draught upon Heaven for those who choose to have their money placed to account there; so I changed my plan, and, instead of telling my own misfortunes, began to prophesy happiness to others. This I found by much the better way: folks will always listen when the tale is their own; and of many who say they do not believe in fortune-telling, I have known few on whom it had not a very sensible effect. I pick up the names of their acquaintance; amours and little squabbles are easily gleaned among servants and neighbours; and indeed people themselves are the best intelligencers in the world for our purpose; they dare not puzzle us for their own sakes, for every one is anxious to hear what they wish to believe; and they who repeat it, to laugh at it when they have done, are generally more serious than their hearers are apt to imagine. With a tolerable good memory and some share of cunning, with the help of walking a-nights over heaths and churchyards, with this, and shewing the tricks of that there dog, whom I stole from the sergeant of a marching regiment-and, by the way, he can steal too upon occasion-I make shift to pick up a livelihood. My trade, indeed, is none of the honestest; yet people are not much cheated neither, who give a few halfpence for a prospect of happiness, which I have heard some persons say is all a man can arrive at in this world. But I must bid you good-day, sir; for I have three miles to walk before noon, to inform some boarding-school young ladies whether their husbands are to be peers of the realm or captains in the army; a question which I promised to answer them by that time.'

He sat down on a large stone to take out a little pebble from his shoe, when he saw, at some distance, a beggar approaching him. He had on a loose sort of coat, mended with different-coloured rags, amongst which the blue and the russet were the predominant. He had a short knotty stick in his hand, and on the top of it was stuck a ram's horn; his knees-though he was no pilgrim-had worn the stuff of his breeches; he wore no shoes, and his stockings had entirely lost that part of them which should have covered his feet and ankles. In his face, however, was the plump appearance of good-humour: he walked a good round pace, and a crooked-legged dog trotted at his heels.

'Our delicacies,' said Harley to himself, are fantastic: they are not in nature! that beggar walks over the sharpest of these stones barefooted, while I have lost the most delightful dream in the world from the smallest of them happening to get into my shoe.' The beggar had by this time come up, and, pulling off a piece of hat, asked charity of Harley; the dog began to beg too. It was impossible to resist both; and, in truth, the want of shoes and stockings had made both unnecessary, for Harley had destined sixpence for him before. The beggar, on receiving it, poured forth blessings without number; and, with a sort of smile on his countenance, said to Harley, 'that if he wanted his fortune told '- Harley turned his eye briskly on the beggar: it was an unpromising look for the subject of a prediction, and silenced the prophet immediately. I would much rather learn,' said Harley, 'what it is in your power to tell me your trade must be an entertaining one sit down on this stone, and let me know something of your profession; I have often thought of turning fortune-teller for a week or two myself.'

'Master,' replied the beggar, 'I like your frankness much; God knows I had the humour of plain-dealing in me from a child; but there is no doing with it in this world; we must live as we can, and lying is, as you call it, my profession: but I was in some sort forced to the trade, for I dealt once in telling truth. I was a labourer, sir, and gained as much as to make me live: I never laid by indeed; for I was reckoned a piece of a wag, and your wags, I take it, are seldom rich, Mr Harley.' 'So,' said Harley, 'you seem to know me.' 'Ay, there are few folks in the country that I don't know something of; how should I tell fortunes else?' True; but to go on with your story: you were a labourer, you say, and a wag; your industry, I suppose, you left with your old trade; but your humour you preserve to be of use to you in your

new.'

'What signifies sadness, sir? a man grows lean on 't: but I was brought to my idleness by degrees; first I

Harley had drawn a shilling from his pocket; bat Virtue bade him consider on whom he was going to bestow it. Virtue held back his arm; but a milder form, a younger sister of Virtue's, not so severe as Virtue, nor so serious as Pity, smiled upon him; his fingers lost their compression; nor did Virtue offer to catch the money as it fell. It had no sooner reached the ground, than the watchful cur-a trick he had been taught-snapped it up; and, contrary to the most approved method of stewardship, delivered it immediately into the hands of his master.

[The Death of Harley.]

Harley was one of those few friends whom the malevolence of fortune had yet left me; I could not, therefore, but be sensibly concerned for his present indisposition; there seldom passed a day on which I did not make inquiry about him.

The physician who attended him had informed me the evening before, that he thought him considerably better than he had been for some time past. I called

next morning to be confirmed in a piece of intelligence so welcome to me.

When I entered his apartment, I found him sitting on a couch, leaning on his hand, with his eye turned upwards in the attitude of thoughtful inspiration. His look had always an open benignity, which commanded esteem; there was now something more-a gentle triumph in it.

He rose, and met me with his usual kindness. When I gave him the good accounts I had had from his physician, 'I am foolish enough,' said he, to rely but little in this instance to physic. My presentiment may be false; but I think I feel myself approaching to my end by steps so easy that they woo me to approach it. There is a certain dignity in retiring from life at a time when the infirmities of age have not sapped our faculties. This world, my dear Charles, was a scene in which I never much delighted. I was not formed for the bustle of the busy nor the dissipation of the gay; a thousand things occurred where I blushed for the impropriety of my conduct when I thought on the world, though my reason told me I should have blushed to have done otherwise. It was a scene of dissimulation, of restraint, of disappointment. I leave it to enter on that state which I have learned to believe is replete with the genuine happiness attendant upon virtue. I look back on the tenor of my life with the consciousness of few great offences to account for. There are blemishes, I confess, which deform in some degree the picture; but I know the benignity of the Supreme Being, and rejoice at the thoughts of its exertion in my favour. My mind expands at the thought I shall enter into the society of the blessed, wise as angels, with the simplicity of children.'

to make it mine; nor do I think that I can ever be better prepared for it than now; it is that chiefly which determines the fitness of its approach.' 'Those sentiments,' answered Miss Walton, are just; but your good sense, Mr Harley, will own that life has its proper value. As the province of virtue, life is ennobled; as such, it is to be desired. To virtue has the Supreme Director of all things assigned rewards enough even here to fix its attachment.'

The subject began to overpower her. Harley lifted his eyes from the ground, "There are,' said he, in a very low voice, 'there are attachments, Miss Walton.' His glance met hers. They both betrayed a confusion, and were both instantly withdrawn. He paused some moments: 'I am in such a state as calls for sincerity, let that also excuse it-it is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. I feel something particularly solemn in the acknowledgment, yet my heart swells to make it, awed as it is by a sense of my presumption, by a sense of your perfections.' He paused again. 'Let it not offend you to know their power over one so unworthy. It will, I believe, soon cease to beat, even with that feeling which it shall lose the latest. To love Miss Walton could not be a crime; if to declare it is one, the expiation will be made.' Her tears were now flowing without control. 'Let me entreat you,' said she, 'to have better hopes. Let not life be so indifferent to you, if my wishes can put any value on it. I will not pretend to misunderstand you-I know your worth-I have known it long-I have esteemed it. What would you have me say? I have loved it as it deserved.' He seized her hand, a languid colour reddened his cheek, a smile brightened faintly in his eye. As he gazed on her it grew dim, it fixed, it closed. He sighed, and fell back on his seat. Miss Walton screamed at the sight. His aunt and the servants rushed into the room. They found them lying motionless together. His physician happened to call at that instant. Every art was tried to recover them. With Miss Walton they succeeded, but Harley was gone for ever!

frailty and of man! The confusion of my mind began to subside into thought; I had time to weep!

He had by this time clasped my hand, and found it wet by a tear which had just fallen upon it. His eye began to moisten too-we sat for some time silent. At last, with an attempt at a look of more composure, "There are some remembrances,' said Harley, which rise involuntarily on my heart, and make me almost wish to live. I have been blessed with a few friends I entered the room where his body lay; I approached who redeem my opinion of mankind. I recollect with it with reverence, not fear. I looked; the recollection the tenderest emotion the scenes of pleasure I have of the past crowded upon me. I saw that form, which, passed among them; but we shall meet again, my but a little before, was animated with a soul which did friend, never to be separated. There are some feelings honour to humanity, stretched without sense or feeling which perhaps are too tender to be suffered by the before me. 'Tis a connection we cannot easily forget. I world. The world is in general selfish, interested, and took his hand in mine; I repeated his name involununthinking, and throws the imputation of romance or tarily. I felt a pulse in every vein at the sound. I looked melancholy on every temper more susceptible than its earnestly in his face; his eye was closed, his lip pale own. I cannot think but in those regions which I and motionless. There is an enthusiasm in sorrow that contemplate, if there is anything of mortality left about forgets impossibility; I wondered that it was so. The us, that these feelings will subsist; they are called-sight drew a prayer from my heart; it was the voice of perhaps they are weaknesses here; but there may be some better modifications of them in heaven, which may deserve the name of virtues.' He sighed as he spoke these last words. He had scarcely finished them when the door opened, and his aunt appeared leading in Miss Walton. My dear,' says she, here is Miss Walton, who has been so kind as to come and inquire for you herself. I could observe a transient glow upon his face. He rose from his seat. If to know Miss Walton's goodness,' said he, 'be a title to deserve it, I have some claim.' She begged him to resume his seat, and placed herself on the sofa beside him. I took my leave. Mrs Margery accompanied me to the door. He was left with Miss Walton alone. She inquired anxiously about his health. I believe,' said he, from the accounts which my physicians unwillingly give me, that they have no great hopes of my recovery.' She started as he spoke; but recollecting herself immediately, endeavoured to flatter him into a belief that his apprehensions were groundless. I know,' said he, 'that it is usual with persons at my time of life to have these hopes which your kindness suggests, but I would not wish to be deceived. To meet death as becomes a man is a privilege bestowed on few. I would endeavour

I turned with the last farewell upon my lips, when I observed old Edwards standing behind me. I looked him full in the face, but his eye was fixed on another object. He pressed between me and the bed, and stood gazing on the breathless remains of his benefactor. I spoke to him I know not what; but he took no notice of what I said, and remained in the same attitude as before. He stood some minutes in that posture, then turned and walked towards the door. He paused as he went; he returned a second time; I could observe his lips move as he looked; but the voice they would have uttered was lost. He attempted going again; and a third time he returned as before. I saw him wipe his cheek; then, covering his face with his hands, his breast heaving with the most convulsive throbs, he flung out of the room.

He had hinted that he should like to be buried in a certain spot near the grave of his mother. This is a weakness, but it is universally incident to humanity; it is at least a memorial for those who survive. For some, indeed, a slender memorial will serve; and the soft affections, when they are busy that way, will build

their structures were it but on the paring of a nail.

I sometimes visit his grave; I sit in the hollow of the tree. It is worth a thousand homilies; every noble feeling rises within me! Every beat of my heart awakens a virtue; but it will make you hate the world. No; there is such an air of gentleness around that I can hate nothing; but as to the world, I pity the men

of it.

FRANCES BURNEY (MADAME D'ARCLAY). FRANCES BURNEY, authoress of Evelina and Cecilia, was the wonder and delight of the generation of novel-readers succeeding that of Fielding and Smollett, and she has maintained her popularity

Dr

all made themselves distinguished: one son rose to be an admiral; the second son, Charles Burney, He was buried in the place he had desired. It was became a celebrated Greek scholar; both the shaded by an old tree, the only one in the churchyard, daughters were novelists.* Fanny was long held in which was a cavity worn by time. I have sat with to be a sort of prodigy. At eight years of age him in it, and counted the tombs. The last time we she did not even know her letters, but she was passed there, methought he looked wistfully on the shrewd and observant. At fifteen she had written tree; there was a branch of it that bent towards us, several tales, was a great reader, and even a critic. waving in the wind; he waved his hand, as if he Her authorship was continued in secret, her sister mimicked its motion. There was something predic-only being aware of the circumstance. In this way, tive in his look! perhaps it is foolish to remark it, it is said, she composed Evelina, but it was not but there are times and places when I am a child at published till January 1778, when little Fanny' those things. was in her twenty-sixth year; and the wonderful precocity of Miss in her teens' may be dismissed as somewhat more than doubtful. The work was offered to Dodsley the publisher, but rejected, as the worthy bibliopole 'declined looking at anything agreed to publish it, and gave £20 for the manuanonymous.' Another bookseller, named Lowndes, script. Evelina, or a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, soon became the talk of the town. Burney, in the fulness of his heart, told Mrs Thrale that 'our Fanny' was the author, and Dr Johnson protested to Mrs Thrale that there were passages in it which might do honour to Richardson! Miss Burney was invited to Streatham, the country residence of the Thrales, and there she met Johnson and his illustrious band of friends, of whom we have ample notices in the Diary. Wherever she went, to London, Bath, or Tunbridge, Evelina was the theme of praise, and Miss Burney the happiest of authors. In 1782 appeared her second work, Cecilia, which is more highly finished than Evelina, but less rich in comic characters and dialogue. Miss Burney having gone to reside for a short time with Mrs Delany, a venerable lady, the friend of Swift, once connected with the court, and who now lived on a pension from their majesties at Windsor, was introduced to the king and queen, and speedily became a favourite. The result was, that in 1786 our authoress was appointed second keeper of the robes to Queen Charlotte, with a salary of £200 a year, a footman, apartments in the palace, and a coach between her and her colleague. The situation was only a sort of splendid slavery. 'I was averse to the union,' said Miss Burney, and I endeavoured to escape it; but my friends interfered-they prevailed-and the knot is tied.' The queen appears to have been a kind and considerate mistress; but the stiff etiquette and formality of the court, and the unremitting attention which its irksome duties required, rendered the situation peculiarly disagreeable to one who had been so long flattered and courted by the brilliant society of her day. Her colleague, Mrs Schwellenberg, a coarse-minded, jealous, disagreeable German favourite, was also a perpetual source of annoyance to her; and poor Fanny at court was worse off than her heroine Cecilia was in choosing among her guardians. Her first official duty was to mix the queen's snuff, and keep her box always replenished; after which she was promoted to the great business of the toilet, helping her majesty off and on with her dresses, and being in strict attendance from six or seven in the morning till twelve at night! From this grinding and intolerable destiny, Miss Burney was

Frances Burney.

better than most secondary writers of fiction. Her name has been lately revived by the publication of her Diary and Letters, containing some clever sketches of society and manners, notices of the court of George III., and anecdotes of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, &c. Miss Burney was the second daughter of Dr Burney, author of the History of Music. She was born at Lynn-Regis, in the county of Norfolk, on the 13th of June 1752. Her father was organist in Lynn, but in 1760 he removed to London-where he had previously resided-and numbered among his familiar friends and visitors David Garrick, Sir Robert Strange the engraver, the poets Mason and Armstrong, Barry the painter, and other persons distinguished in art and literature. Such society must have had a highly beneficial effect on his family, and accordingly we find they

144

Rear-admiral James Burney accompanied Captain Cook in two of his voyages, and was author of a History of Voyages Eastern Voyages. He died in 1820. Dr Charles Burney wrote of Discovery, 5 vols. quarto, and an Account of the Russian several critical works on the Greek classics, was a prebendary of Lincoln, and one of the king's chaplains. After his death, in 1817, the valuable library of this great scholar was purchased by government for the British Museum.

emancipated by her marriage, in 1793, with a French I readily imagined that Sir Clement must be the refugee officer, the Count d'Arblay. She then author of this note, which prepared me to expect some resumed her pen, and in 1795 produced a tragedy, disagreeable adventure: but I had no time to ponder entitled Edwin and Elgitha, which was brought out upon it, for Madame Duval had no sooner read her own at Drury Lane, and possessed at least one novelty-letter, than, in an angry tone of voice, she exclaimed: there were three bishops among the dramatis persona. Mrs Siddons personated the heroine, but in the dying scene, where the lady is brought from behind a hedge to expire before the audience, and is afterwards carried once more to the back of the hedge, the house was convulsed with laughter! Her next effort was her novel of Camilla, which she published by subscription, and realised by it no less than three thousand guineas. In 1802, Madame d'Arblay accompanied her husband to Paris. The count joined the army of Napoleon, and his wife was forced to remain in France till 1812, when she