business, and each time left a card, by way of refresher to his memory.

At last, when he had almost despaired of success, and had come to the determination of peremptorily demanding back his manuscript, his fondest hopes were realized. One afternoon, on his return home from the law courts, just as he had entered his chambers, the postman's brisk rat-tat was heard at his outer door; and presently his clerk made his appearance with a letter, dated Street, in his hand. Eternal powers! what were the young man's transports on perusing the contents of this note! The communication was from the publisher to whom he had transmitted his romance; and, though penned in a dry, terse, and business-like style, yet, in Charles's estimation, it teemed with the eloquence of a Burke; for it was to the effect that his tale had been read and approved; that the writer acceded to his terms; and that, if he would favour him with a visit at his earliest convenience, he would give him a cheque for the three hundred pounds, and, at the same time, venture to suggest a few trifling alterations in the manuscript, which he thought would tend to increase its chances of popularity.

Charles read this touching billet at least twice over, to convince himself that he had not misapprehended its import; and then, hurrying out into the street, threw himself into the first cab he met, and as might have been anticipated-was thrown out just ten minutes afterwards, though fortunately his fall was attended with no worse consequences than developing on the back of his head that particular bump -namely, conscientiousness-which, as phrenologists have justly observed, is so invariably found wanting in the skulls of politicians.

On getting on his legs again, young Meredith, made cautious by experience, continued his journey on foot, and on reaching the publisher's shop, and sending in his name, was at once ushered into the august presence. The interview, though short, was highly satisfactory. Charles received the bibliopole's compliments with becoming modesty, and his cheque with very visible delight; and, having listened to his suggestions, and promised to give them all due consideration, he took his leave, and posted off to a neighbouring banker's, where he presented his cheque, and received in return a

handsome pile of Bank of England

notes.

Just as he turned again into the street, he unexpectedly encountered an old college chum, to whom he imparted his good fortune in terms of such extravagant rapture, that his friend, a sedate mathematician, looked at him, not without a suspicion that his intellects were impaired. And let no one blame his transports, for an author's first work-especially if it be of an imaginative character, and he who penned it a green enthusiastis always an affair of prodigious moment in his estimation! The lover who hears his mistress falter out "yes," when he feared she was going to say "no;" the father, who sees in his darling first-born the reflection of himself, even to the snub-nose and unquestionable squint; the hungry leader of opposition, who finds himself suddenly transported from the comfortless region on the wrong side of the speaker, to the Canaan of the Treasury Bench, flowing with milk and honey; the turtle-shaped alderman, who, on the glorious day of his metamorphosis into a lord-mayor, hears his health drunk and his virtues lauded at his own table by a real first minister of the crown; these, even in the height of their extasy, feel no more intense gratification than does the young unsophisticated author on the success of his first literary enterprise. But how changed the scene, when, the gloss of novelty worn off, he takes to writing as a task! The instant composition becomes a matter of necessity, it ceases to be a pleasure. Fancy flags, and must be goaded onwards like an unwilling steed; invention, that once answered readily to one's bidding, stands coldly aloof; the fine edge of feeling grows dull; thought refuses longer to soar, but creeps tamely, instead, along the dead flats of commonplace; and the mere act of stringing sentences together comes to be the most thankless and irksome drudgery. Charles, however, had not yet reached this pass. At present he was in the honeymoon of authorship.

After strolling about some time with his Cambridge friend, Charles went back to his chambers, where he occupied himself till the dinner hour in perusing Scott's splendid romance of Old Mortality; and in the evening, which set in wet and stormy, he drew forth from its modest hiding-place his last

remaining bottle of wine, closed his shutters, wheeled his sofa round to the fire, which he coaxed and fed till it blazed like a furnace, and then, in the true spirit of that "luxurious idlesse which Thomson has so well described, allowed his skittish fancy to run riot, and, rapt in delicious reverie, began building castle after castle in the air, whose imposing splendour increased in exact proportions to his potations.

"Lucky fellow that I am," mentally exclaimed this sanguine daydreamer, as his eye fell on the heap of bank-notes which lay close beside him on the table, "here are the fruitful seeds from which I am destined soon to reap a rich harvest of wealth and fame The sum now in my possession will afford me a moderate competence till I have brought my next literary production to a close, when, of course, my means will be extended; for if I get three hundred pounds for my first work, it is as clear as the sun at noon-day that, for my second, which will be twice as good, and therefore twice as popular, I shall get twice, or perhaps thrice, the sum. Then, who so fairly on the road to fame as I? My second flight of fancy being successful, my third will still further increase my renown, when public curiosity will be strongly excited to know who and what I am. Mysterious surmises will be set afloat respecting my identity. The press will teem with authentic particulars' of my birth, parentage, and education; this journal asserting, on authority,' that I am Sir Morgan O'Doherty; another, that I am a young Irishman who withhold my name for the present, in consequence of having killed my uncle in a duel; and a third, that I am no less a personage than the President of the Noctes! At last the whole mighty truth will be revealed, and an agitated world be calmed by the appearance of my name in the title-page of my fourth historical romance. From that eventful period I shall become the leading lion of the day. My best witticisms will be repeated at every table, and, under the head of Meredith's last,' circulated in every journal; my likeness, taken by an eminent artist, will be exhibited in my publisher's shop-window; great booksellers will contend for the honour of my patronage; invitations to dinners, balls, and conversaziones, will pour in hour by hour throughout the

season; when I enter a drawing-room, a whisper will go round, especially among the ladies, of There he is!What a dear creature!-How interesting he looks!'-and at length the general enthusiasm will reach such a height, that, one night, as I am in the act of quitting a crowded conversazione, one of the most ardent of my male admirers, anxious to possess some memorial of me, will walk off with my best hat and cloak, just as a similar literary enthusiast absconded last autumn with Christopher North's celebrated sporting jacket.

"And what will be the result of all this enviable notoriety? Can I doubt? No. The sunny future lies spread out before me like a map. A beautiful young girl of rank and fortune, fair as a water-lily, with pale Grccian face, slender figure, remarkable for its symmetry, and foot so exquisitely and aristocratically small, as to be hardly visible, except through a microscope ;-this refined, graceful, and sylph-like creature, attracted by the blaze of my reputation, will seize the favourable opportunity of my being invited to a ball at her father's house, to transfer her affections, from the author to the man! The consequences may be anticipated. I shall reciprocate her feelings; sigh whenever she approaches, throwing a fine distraction into my eloquent dark eye; and, finally, one fine day, when there is no one in the drawing-room but herself, make a direct avowal of my love. Grateful creature! She just clasps her fairy hands-utters tremulously

Oh goodness gracious!'-and then sinks into a consenting swoon on my bosom. But, alas! the course of true love never did run smooth. The lady's stony-hearted parents insist on her marrying a squat viscount of sixty. She refuses: whereupon I press my suit, and, driven to desperation, propose an instantaneous elopement. An elopement! Delicious sound in the ears of romantic youth and beauty! Can Leonora resist its magic? No!

"Accordingly, one morning in the appropriate month of May, when the streets are still and solitary, and the venerable parents of my idolized Leonora are comfortably snoring back to back in bed, I meet her by appointment at the corner of the square where she resides-pop her into a hackney-coach, rattle away to Highgate, and there transfer her to a post-chaise and four,

Mean-while, I commence my oration. Unaccustomed, as I am, to public speaking,' is the modest and ingenious language in which I supplicate the forbearance of honourable members, who, with that generosity so characteristic of free-born Britons, reply to my novel appeal with reiterated cheers. Having thus secured their favourable opinion, I plunge unhesitatingly in medias res. I put the question in its broadest and clearest light; I philosophise upon it; am jocular upon it; embellish it by some apt Greek quotations, infinitely to the delight of Mr Baines, who expresses his satisfaction at my being such a ready Latin scholar; and conclude with an impassioned and electrifying apostrophe to the genius of British freedom. Next day the papers are all full of my praises. Those which approve the principles of my speech, extol it as a miracle of reasoning; and even those which are adverse, yet frankly confess that, as a mere matter of eloquence, it has never been surpassed within the walls of St Stephens. A few nights afterwards I create a similar sensation, which is rendered still more memorable from the circumstance that a lady of rank and fashion who happens to be listening to the debate in the small recess over the roof of the House, overbalances herself in the ardour of her feelings, and tumbles, head-foremost, through the sky-light into the Speaker's lap!

"So passes the Session. During the recess, the clubs are all busy in speculation as to my future course of proceeding. Not a gossip at the Athenæum, the Carlton, or the Reform Clubs, but has an anecdote to relate about Charles Meredith. The foreign secretary was seen walking arm-in-arm with me one Sunday afternoon in Hyde Park; and the next day it was remarked that the chancellor of the exchequer kept me fast by the button-hole for a whole hour in Palace Yard. Hence it is inferred that I shall ere long form one of the government. Even a peerage is talked of; but that I am doubtful whether to accept or not. Brougham's fate holds out an impressive warning. Weeks, months, thus roll on, and about the period of the meeting of Parliament, ministers, who are sadly in want of a ready, fluent speaker, begin to throw out hints of an intention to angle for me. These hints

daily become more significant, and as I take not the slightest notice of them, it is concluded that silence gives consent, and that I have my price. Acting on this conviction, the ministerial whipper-in sounds me on the subject, and lured on by my seeming acquiescence, proceeds to open his battery upon me through the medium of divers epistles marked 'private and confidential,' in which, in the event of my supporting government, I am promised a snug berth in Downing Street, and at the end of the session, when certain troublesome questions are disposed of, a foreign embassy, with an earldom, and a pension. Ye, who are honest men-and here, thank God, I feel that I am appealing to a vast majority of Englishmen, and the entire population of Ireland-imagine the blush that paints my patriotic physiognomy on receiving these affronting proposals! I am bewildered - horrorstruck- teetocaciously exflunctified'

(to use Jonathan's phrase); and when the whipper-in meets me by appointment to receive my final answer, I snatch up his insulting letters, which happen to be lying beside me on the table, and glaring on him, like a Numidian lion, while he, hypocrite as he is, puts his hands into his base breeches-pockets, like Lord Castlereagh's crocodile, by way of showing his indifference, I exclaim, in the most withering tones of scorn, 'Sir, were I bound to ministers by as strong ties of affection as even those which bind a Burdett to an O'Connell, still I would disdain to join their party on terms such as you propose. If you have no conscience, sir, I have; know, therefore, that nothing under a dukedom and a pension for three lives will suit my disinterested views of the case!" So saying, I tear the letters into a thousand fragments, and fling them into the fire thus !-thus !-thus,—

"Heavens and earth, what-what have I done?" continued the excited castle-builder, his enthusiasm falling below zero in an instant. Why, I have actually, in the order of reverie, mistaken a pile of bank notes for ministerial communications, and consigned to the flames the entire sum I received but this morning from my publisher!" It was too true. Of the three hundred pounds, not one single vestige remained. The devouring element' had destroyed all.

So much for castle-building!"