rotunda; an announce-bill invites his attention, on which he bestows not one momentary glance. Sounds from the stage pierce the silent lobbies; the curtain has been up some time; but he shall see Othello! Yes, that must be Kean's voice!

"Boxkeeper! Fly! Any place ?"

"Oh yes, sir, we can give you a place! Where would you like to sit, sir ?"

"Open a door anywhere!"

And as a door was instantly opened, the heart of the young enthusiast leaped up indeed. Then, in another moment, as he sprang, not very decorously, down to an excellent seat on the front row, he saw first, and then heard, a tall awkward performer, singing, with a sad cold, and in execrable taste, a passage in Artaxerxes!—that opera having been, in consequence of the illness of Mr. Kean, substituted for the other stage-convenience-a tragedy, entitled Othello! I was disappointed that night!

"For I had not deserved it, and it smote me to the heart."

Disappointment is a sharp stern monitor, but often a kind one, and his lessons have this virtue-they are apt to last. Let them be remembered, but not felt too acutely. How needless was the sting, self-inflicted on that worthy honest man, who, having signed a bill of exchange for five hundred pounds, kept the cash during the three days of grace, before his conscientious eyes, ready to be paid on demand. Alas! the bill was not presented when due. The appointed day expired, and the next in turn went the way of all sunshine. Others followed, and a month had elapsed-a year. The good debtor -this happened not lately-looked at the money which was not his, and felt that its golden lustre cast a shadow upon him inwardly. Its presence was a mystery, an unpleasant, a glaring intrusion. Still he sat in the simple faith of his contract, and hoped, and hoped. But nobody came; the cash was undemanded; and he grew fidgetty and restless. Then he saddened more. His expectation melted all away. He was a disappointed man; and when he died, an alms-house was erected with some spare money.

But what disappointment can life have in store for us-fashion our foolish expectations as we may-equal in intensity to the rapture of a late long-deferred and sudden surprise! When the character we had suspected comes into light, when the conduct we had misconstrued shews clear and fair, and the face in which we had seen but a dishonest scowl, laughs out in the flush of truth, as the film of jealousy, or envy, or common prejudice, drops from our wakened eyes, what bitterness of disappointment can equal the sweetness of that discovery! Gall has less potency than balm.

Still the fact remains, and it brings us round again to the point from which we started; that while none assure us with gravity that they are doomed to expect foolishly, thousands tell us that they are doomed to be disappointed cruelly. With this impression strong on the mind, even blessings and good luck may come in the form of a disappointment. The eastern sage, when the bowstring was already round his neck, was unexpectedly respited. "You are saved, philosopher," said the professor of strangulation. "Mashallah!" cried the pardoned one, shrugging his shoulders, "I was doomed to disappointment !"

THE COUNTRY CURATE.*

BY CHARLES OLLIER.

"The virtue and other qualifications of the Rev. Mr. Adams, as they rendered him equal to his office, so they made him an agreeable and valuable companion, and had so much endeared and well recommended him to a bishop, that, at the age of fifty, he was provided with a handsome income of twenty three pounds a-year; which, however, he could not make any great figure with, because he lived in a dear country, and was a little incumbered with a wife and six children."

CHAPTER I.

THE CURATE'S HOUSE AND FAMILY.

JOSEPH ANDREWS.

Few things on earth can be more uninviting than the generality of small provincial towns. They have not the charm of rusticity, nor the animation of a metropolis; the attraction of opening prospects, nor view of grand edifices: they are not "rus in urbe," whatever they may pretend; neither can they boast the advantage of pure country air; for the houses of most of them are small and confined, the streets narrow and abutting on squalid courts, the drainage imperfect, the ventilation bad. A man might walk through London a whole day, and not have his sense of smelling so often offended as in a ten-minutes' perambulation of a country-town High Street. Now that the little life which they used to derive from the passage through them of stagecoaches has ceased, they must stagnate in utter listlessness: their inhabitants will approximate more closely than before to somnambulists; and their shops, except once a week on market-day, will be drearier than ever.

In a small tenement of one of these sleepy places, situated in the western extremity of Somersetshire, lived, about seventy years ago, a clergyman of the name of Westerwood. He officiated as curate of the parish church, of which the rector was a Doctor Bruiner. Mr. Westerwood was an accomplished scholar, and a pious man of apostolical simplicity; but being unfortunately destitute of other advantages,that is to say, having no interest with influential persons, nor any talent for pushing his way, and manoeuvring to the prejudice of others, (a thing he abhorred,)—he remained a poor curate, and never dreamed of even a chance of further advancement in the church. Doctor Bruiner, a wealthy pluralist, allowed Mr. Westerwood twenty pounds a-year for officiating at one of his best livings-namely, that in the town of which mention has just been made; and this salary being paid halfyearly, the poor curate could only obtain the necessaries of life through the disadvantageous medium of credit.

Mr. Westerwood had a wife and three daughters. His house, which consisted of no more than four apartments, was but scantily furnished. Two of the latter were used as bed-chambers. One of the rooms on the ground-floor was appropriated to kitchen purposes; the other answered the double purpose of the reverend gentleman's study and the family

* The idea of this story is derived from an imaginary Journal of a Somersetshire Curate, occupying a single octavo page in a periodical work, published in 1777. Happy is it that such a story could not be written of the present time.

parlour. Here his books (and they were very few) were arranged in a little recess by the side of the fireplace. They consisted of an old Bible; including the "Book of Common Prayer;" Jeremy Taylor's "Holy Living and Dying;" Barrow's Sermons, and a volume of the mathematical works of that great divine; Fuller's "Abel Redivivus," and (though Mr. Westerwood was not a Calvinist) the "Pilgrim's Progress" of John Bunyan, over which, he used to say, a noble spirit of genuine piety prevailed. The religious poems of Dr. Donne, Milton's "Paradise Lost," an old folio Cowley, and an odd volume or two of Shakspeare's plays, completed his library. But out of these few books he drew infinite solace under the pressure of want―unfailing amusement, (if such a term may be used,) and still-increasing enlargement of thought.

In one event of his life, Mr. Westerwood had been eminently fortunate: he had married happily; and though condemned by indigence to live apart from the world, he found a perpetual source of varied interest in the society of his helpmate, who, by activity and laborious attention to household duties (for they could not afford a servant), lightened the burden of his necessities, and by wise and cheerful conversation, when they sat together in the evening, brightened the poverty of his home till it shone like a little paradise. The girls were too young to have any marked character; but they were affectionate and dutiful; their dispositions, moreover, were so happy, and they confided with such perfect unreserve in their parents, that they scarcely perceived the privations which they and their father and mother endured daily. It was a family of love, which Misfortune could not blight, nor even Poverty render callous.

It has been said, that Doctor Bruiner allowed Mr. Westerwood twenty pounds a-year for officiating as curate; but this, though the largest part, was not the whole of his income. A few slight church-fees were permitted to fall to him; and when the pluralist-rector, according to the faculty of dispensation, was obliged to deliver his thirteen annual sermons in the benefice of which Mr. Westerwood was curate, the latter was able to preach in other parishes. But altogether his receipts were inadequate to the supply of his daily wants, humble as these

were.

In spite of all this, our curate was alert in his sacred calling. He was a working parson, consoling, as far as in him lay, his fellow-poor -the other poor, as he used to call them-visiting the sick, whom he comforted with holy words and hopes; healing animosities among his parishioners; giving ghostly comfort to the conscience-stricken by demonstrating the efficacy of repentance; and drawing from the gospels perpetual themes for new, eloquent, vital, and edifying sermons. Poor man! it is wonderful how he did all this, gnawn as he was by viper

cares.

Cowley says of writing poetry, "There is nothing that requires so much serenity of spirit: it must not be overwhelmed with the cares of life, or overcast with the clouds of melancholy and sorrow, or shaken and disturbed with the storms of injurious fortune: like the Halcyon, it must have fair weather to breed in." True as this is, it may, with equal if not greater truth be affirmed as an almost necessary condition of his mind who, in composing homilies, has to meditate deeply, in order that his words may be effectual in reclaiming the vicious, the

cruel, the selfish, and other ungodly persons from the error of their ways. Had the rector thought fit to shake even some of his superfluities into the lap of his poor curate, he would have given him the frame of mind described by Cowley. Nevertheless, though he lacked this, the good man went on zealously in his vocation. Mr. Westerwood's character resembled that which Chaucer has given to the parish priest in his Prologue to the Canterbury Tales:

"A good man there was of religioun
That was a pourè parson of a toun;

But riche he was of holy thought and werk.
He was also a learned man, a clerk,
That Cristès gospel trewèly wolde preche;
His parishens devoutly wolde he teche;
Benigne he was, and wonder diligent,
And in adversitè ful patient."

Patient, indeed, "in adversity," was our Somersetshire curate; and his patience grew the greater the more it was exercised. He recollected the words of the apostle Peter, in his first epistle: "If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called." Thus was our curate comforted.

One evening, when his little stock of money was exhausted-when the importunity of those who supplied him with necessaries was too strong to permit any further application to them, and the morrow threatened to rise dismally-Mr. Westerwood received a letter from Doctor Bruiner, saying he might come to him the next day and receive his half-yearly payment. This was good news indeed. "Courage, my dear!" said he to his wife. "We shall be in cash to-morrow. I shall start early in the morning, so as to return in time to make our payments on the same day. The rector is at his other living in Devonshire, only eleven miles off. Let me see; how long will it take me to walk two-and-twenty miles? Three hours there, and an hour for rest, are four; and three back, make seven. Good. Then, if I start at six in the morning, I shall be at home by noon. How much do we owe, Constance?"

"Nearly nine pounds."

"I feared it was more: excellent! Then we shall be able to acquit ourselves of debt, renew our credit, and have a pound in store. Out of this pound we must buy shoes for the girls, so that they may appear more respectably at church. Though my half year's salary is due, I did not, I must confess, expect it so soon. Courage, my dear! After all, we shall sleep happily to-night, not dreading the morrow."

"Never was there so grateful a heart as yours, Godfrey," returned Mrs. Westerwood.

"Besides shoes for the girls," pursued the curate, not noticing his wife's remark, "you, my dear Constance, shall have a new bonnet." "No, no," responded she; "with a fresh riband, the old one will look smart enough. Your own raiment," she added, gazing with tearful eyes at her husband-" your own raiment, Godfrey, is much worn, and

"Think not of it," interrupted Mr. Westerwood. "You forget that the cassock hides a multitude of imperfections in a clergyman's other garments."

"And sometimes in the clergyman himself," returned the wife. "Is it not so? Alas! all do not resemble my husband!"

"Constance!" exclaimed the curate. "This is not like you. For years, I have not heard a word of bitterness escape your lips-no, not even during our greatest trials. Why, then, do you select this moment of relief for uttering a sarcasm?”

"Because, Godfrey, when I look at your careworn face, and reflect on the struggle to which we are condemned-a struggle, not for the comforts of life, but for bare subsistence, for actual avoidance of starvation—when I think that after all your hard work—your earnest and faithful discharge of your duties-we should be left in such tribulation as to regard the receipt of your pittance, when it is due, as a moment of relief, as a cause for rejoicing, I confess I cannot suppress a feeling of anger. Far more than in this relief, necessary as it is for you and me and the poor girls, do I rejoice at hearing you say that till now no word of bitterness has escaped my lips; but though I have not spoken, I have thought, and thought bitterly, not only of our condition, but of him who suffers us to remain in it while he rolls in luxury."

"Be still patient, as you have hitherto been, my own Constance," said the curate. "We have placed our trust where alone a Christian can place it," added he, looking upwards. "Depend on it, all will go right at last."

"Meanwhile," rejoined she, "we have trials to undergo; the more trying, because of their sordidness. We deserve to be freed from them. Do unto others as you would be done by,' is a precious maxim of our Saviour. How can one of his ministers dare to disobey it? We are stung beyond endurance. Do you call Doctor Bruiner a Christian?"

Mr. Westerwood was astonished at this burst of passion from his meek wife. He took her hand, kissed it, and then said, sorrowfully, "We must remember, my dear, another admonition from the same divine source: Judge not, lest ye be judged.' Let us, therefore, hold fast to our Redeemer, not for the sake of treasure here or anywhere, but out of faith and humble love."

The curate's wife felt his mild rebuke; she returned the fond pressure of her husband's hand; and with a prayer on their lips, the good couple betook themselves to repose.

CHAPTER II.

INTERVIEW WITH THE RECTOR.

THE morning dawned auspiciously. A July sun arose in all its fervid grandeur on a cloudless sky. No sooner did our curate, whose window looked eastward, behold rays of gold shoot like crowds of flaming arrows above the houses, than he left his bed and prepared for his walk. "I shall be home again at noon," said he to his wife; "keep up your heart, Constance. During the night, I have been thinking it would be as well to let Doctor Bruiner know how hardly we fare. He may not be aware of it. Perhaps he will do something for us. Who knows?"

Mrs. Westerwood shook her head distrustfully, as her husband left the room.