BY LADY BULWER LYTTON. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. II. "There is a twofold fortune wherewith we are to enter the lists; Of Wisdome, the second booke,-by PETER CHARRON, A.D. 1600. "Perieramus nisi perissemus." "Not from the chance of Fortune's wheel, Nor from the dust-affliction springs; The troubles that believers feel Are but GOD's blessings in disguise; And like Ezekiel's visioned rings,* The wheels of Providence have eyes.- JOSEPH SNOW's "Churchyard Thoughts." LONDON-WHITTAKER & Co., AVE MARIA LANE. TAUNTON :-FREDERICK R. CLARKE, 1856. [THE AUTHOR RESERVES THE RIGHT OF TRANSLATION.] 249. V. 178. NOTICE TO THOSE WHO WILL UNDERSTAND IT. THE job of going all lengths to abuse this work and its Author, in short, of translating right into wrong, and of perverting white into black, is reserved to “ My Grandmother's Gazette, The Literary,' ” “The Assinæum,' "No Quarterly" or "New Quarterly, or whatever that leaden production is called, and the other especial myrmidons of that Literary Inquisition, "The GUILT of Literature," to whom writing scurrilous ANONYMOUS letters to the Author, purporting to be from "Influential Reviewers" (?) is also stringently restricted. For the abuse of such animalculi, the Author is most grateful, as criticism, or what is called such, really does possess Epictetus's two handles. For example, Scaliger cites the fourth book of Horace as execrable, and Heinsius quotes it as one of the master-pieces of antiquity! Ainsi, consolons nous, quand même ? for "Pulchrum est accusari, ab accusandis." All the Author hopes is, that it may turn out to be the same gang of male and female Infamies employed before by the great Literary Bombastes, in the too blackguardly Llangollen Conspiracy, (of which there are such reams of proofs, and such clouds of witnesses,) who have again been employed by him, to feloniously obtain her papers from Lord Lyndhurst's porter; as she is only awaiting the result of the pretended investigation through the "Circumlocution Office," and of the Post Office Prig Master General being back-staired a leetle deeper in the affair, to make public the whole of this last iniquity, so utterly disgraceful to all concerned in it, whether as pretended dupes, or cognizant accomplices, as this phase of the dastardly and permanent conspiracy with which she has to contend, once exposed the rest must naturally follow past the power of perjury or puffery to refute, or of cant and conventionality to vituperate, great as those two bulwarks of vice are in English society. For there is a point of persecution and oppresssion beyond which even a woman's legal slave-owner is not, by the law, at least of opinion, permitted to go; or if he does, he must expect that even a wife will share the other earth-worm's prerogative, and turn, when so trampled on, and that too, without being deterred by any fear of the additional sourdes menées of the fulminating ELOHIM of a not omnipotent, though thoroughly unprincipled, Literary clique on the one side, or those of a routed, ridiculous, disaffected, and demoralised gang of political Bashibazouks on the other, as from an intimate and bitter knowledge of the dregs of each, she alike despises, and defies both. But, who, say they, will defend a solitary victim against whom a phalanx of the strong, and a cohort of the "clever" unscrupulous are leagued? The answer is brief, and to them may appear feeble, but they may yet, to their confusion, live to find, that out of such weakness, when too long and too brutally trampled on, springs up a giant's strength. Tacitus tells us, that under the simplicity of Agricola the Romans failed to discover the great man; and in like manner, under the apparent helplessness and friendlessness of their victims, tyrants often fail to discover, till it is too late, the small, still, unsuspected sources which Omnipotence converts into the flood-gates of Its Retributive Justice, and while exulting in their hitherto invulnerable armour of IMPUNITY, and tauntingly asking their victim, "Who, poor worm, will avenge you?" the worm, when they least expect it, finds a voice to name the Avenger that shall echo, trumpet-tongued through all posterity, the words— "Moi! vous dis-je, ce moi, plus robuste que moi !" It is further recommended to Bombastes, (by way of a salutary, and above all, an economical change, which has great charms for him,-a saving grace being the only one that he possesses,) that he should try to believe in GOD, instead of in spirit-rappers! who have already so shamefully deceived him; as they positively assured him that his victim's death was to come off last June twelvemonths; whereas she, the semi-immortal wretch, can assure him on far better authority, that there is not the least chance (always barring accidents, or sudden good fortune, such as her brain being turned by a widow's cap!) of her dying these thirty years. So although he has changed the venue from the Pykes and Gettings-sent to scrape acquaintance with, and administer little Palmeric anodynes to her-to spies of the he-Barnes breed, sent down to "Spread-Eagles" and other pot-houses, to make tender inquiries about her health, and ask if she is not dropsical!!! (Scarcely, considering that from Bombastes' ceaseless conspiracies, ever since he turned his victim and his legitimate children out of their home, to make way for his then mistress, Miss L- a Dn, the munificent four hundred a year,-minus the Income-tax!!!—which he allows her from his own costly vices and superfluities, has been reduced to a hundred and eighty! so that she is compelled to write in order to meet the expenses his persecutions entail upon her, she, having no Platonic or other pensions from any one,—which deprives her of the means of having any beverage but water, and that has never yet, even among modern discoveries, been accredited for its dropsical tendencies.) Now, it would be far better and infinitely more prudent to curtail this terrible expense of ceaseless espionnage of |