Not which he claimed so much credit. that he meant to deny the ingenuity of that individual. He had produced a delightful variety in the manifold arts and habits of female adornment. But what had that to do with Mr. Hewell's invention, which was utterly different? The meshes were circular-round as the full harvest moon-according to the immortal Hogarth, of whom he was reminded by that superb picture over the seat of the chancellor, the only true line of beauty. What was the stiff and formal square, the merely approximating parabola, or the angular and unsightly octagon, when compared with the circle, the only perfect figure in the world? So perfect, that if Mr. Sewell added one of it to the 10,000l. he was reported to bave made by his Persianette, it would make it ten times as much, and give him a plum! Mr. Hewell might regret that by an accident the name of his invention, Persiannet, did happen to resemble that of Mr. Sewell; but under his lordship's direction he was perfectly willing to alter it, and call that stuff which was driving the other fast out the market - hinc illa lachryma-Irannet or Bulbulnet, which last might recommend it to John Bull, perhaps, as much as any fanciful foreign denomination. "Upon this conciliatory address the lord chancellor, with the concurrence of the learned counsel on both sides, dismissed the motion, on the understanding that henceforward the name of Persiannet was to be dropped, and that of Bulbulnet adopted by Mr. Hewell." It was soon corrupted by the vulgar into Bubblenet; but not a yard less sold in consequence of the joke, which was attributed by the Sewellites to Theodore Hook, and by the Hewellites to the Rev. Sidney Smith; who, it was added, got a pair of sleeves made of it much finer than lawn. It was, indeed, about this time that the witty prebendary and a lot of minor canons petitioned parliament to cut off portions of all lawn sleeves, in gratitude for which they concluded, "And your petitioners will ever pray," just as if they had not been paid for so doing before. But this is wandering from our subject. This last chancery suit of Sewell v. Hewell made more noise than all their preceding squabbles and battlings. Curiosity was stimulated to excess, and not a country cousin came to town who must not pay a visit to Oxford Street, and a bill to Sewell for Persianette, or to Hewell for Bulbulnet. Commissions flowed in from every quarter. The Parcels' Delivery Company had to license forty new flies and vans, and the steam-packets and railways got up every inch of steam under the highest pressure. The Helen Macgregor was wrecked off the Hebrides with a cargo from both houses; and the female passengers hardly cared to be saved, as the vessel sunk with all its lading. It was reported afterwards that the mermaids who frequent that coast were seen admiring themselves more than ever in their looking-glasses, neglecting to comb their hair, and entirely taken up with their new dresses of Bubblenet, which they had fished up from the Helen Macgregor full fifty fathom deep. These are only instances of the universality of this fashion. Nay, several ultra-dandies put on cuffs à la D'Orsay, turned up without his taste almost to their elbows, of lilycoloured Persianette. It was impossible to go farther. During all this time, nearly six months, we have lost sight of Jack Sewell and pretty Polly Hewell; but they had not lost sight of each other. The newspapers, from which in truth we derive all our information, just before Christmas, contained these words, under the head of marriages: "At St. George's, Hanover Square, by the Right Rev. the Bishop of Sodor and Man, John Sewell, Esq., of Sewell Lodge, Essex, only son of Simon Hewell, Esq., late of No. 599 ▲ Oxford Street, now of Skilleborough, Wilts, to Mary, only daughter of Sir Barnaby Hewell, Knight, high sheriff of Flint and Montgomery. After the ceremony the friends and relatives of the families partook of a sumptuous déjeuné at Bulbul Hall, Hyde Park Corner, and the happy couple set The John Bull of the Sunday succeeding had illuminated the public with regard to this title, as follows: - On the be-nighting of Barnaby Hewell, haberdasher: "Hewell, 't was said, by an error of the Press, Her gracious majesty could do no less: off in a handsome chariot and four greys to spend their honeymoon at Salt Hill." In another part of the paper, among the advertisements, we observed that "The firm of Mullins, Fubbs, and Winks, begged leave to announce that they had succeeded to the entire business carried on by Sewell and Hewell retired; and were determined to deserve the continued support of the public by selling every species of haberdashery, including the matchless Persianettes and the unequalled Bulbulnets, on the lowest terms, and for ready money only." At the ensuing meeting of The Drapers' Assistants' Sunday Club, Ralph Roger de Smythe Jinkins, Esq. in the chair, after the customary loyal and patriotic toasts were disposed of, the president rose and addressed the assembly: "Gentlemen assistants," said he, "it now becomes my painfully pleasant duty to propose to you a toast which I am sure you will drink in bumpers, and, though with some regret, with great enthusiasm. It is a toast to those who, lost to these meetings, must be to memory dear, and who we hope have only left us to better themselves, and to elevate the proud name of the Drapers' Assistants. (Tremendous cheering.) Gentlemen, need I add that I allude to the new firm of Mullins, Fubbs, and Winks? (Shouts of applause.) Of Mullins, Fubbs, and Winks, gentlemen, who have exchanged the highly respectable and independent station of assistants, for that of employers? (Cheers.) That they will fill their new position with honour, cannot be doubted by those who have witnessed the uniform dignity with which they have maintained their past condition in life. (Applause.) Neither can it be feared, gentlemen, with the bright example which has been set before them by the late important and respected firm of Sewell and Hewell, that they will proceed on the highway to like noble fortune and public distinction. (Applause.) Gentlemen assistants, tiled in as we are amongst ourselves—where nothing but honour and confidence prevails-it may cessors be stated that the illustrious firm of Sewell and Hewell DID THE TRICK in the most masterly style (immense plaudits)— a glorious pattern to their immediate suca glorious pattern to us all. (Prodigious shouts.) Gentlemen assistants, Messrs. Sewell and Hewell never ceased to be co-partners, their feuds were all fudge, and Heaven blessed and prospered one of the most splendiferous schemes that ever entered into the prolific brains of a haberdasher. (Thunders of rapturous applause, which lasted eleven minutes.) "Gentlemen assistants, the manner in which you have received this explanation is sufficient. To eloquence I have no pretence, nor could the oratory of ten Jinkinses do justice to the topic. History Gentlealone is capable-capable men, I am overpowered by the magnitude of the subject, and exhausted by the interesting ideas which pour in upon me. Therefore all I shall say on the present occasion is (fill bumpers and drain them dry), health and prosperity to our late brethren, Messrs. Mullins, Fubbs, and Winks!" (Drank with long-continued nine times nine, and one cheer more.) What Mr. Jinkins had stated was indeed the fact. Upon inquiry into the secret of the strange succession of Mullins and Co., we discovered that Messrs. Sewell and Hewell had never ceased to be co-partners; that their feud, as we suspected, was not of a religious but a political nature; that on the eve of bankruptcy, they invented the device we have but faintly described; and that in the course of one year they had humbugged the discerning public out of no less a sum than one hundred and forty thousand pounds, besides selling the good-will of their business to Mullins, Fubbs, and Winks (who knew pretty well what it was worth, having intermarried with the immaculate Mesdames Capes, Tapes, and Trapes, of No. 599 A), for a well-secured annuity of three thousand a-year, and a reversion to the issue of John and Mary. RAMBLING REFLECTIONS. AN autumn evening, with its golden sun, Was teeming with wealth-'t was the harvest home. I left, and had forgotten. The scented gale To me was Lethe's draught; and the turmoil Of cities and haunts of men, a told tale. I near❜d a village The church grey o'er with age, its spire and porch Where dwelt the pastor. Here, thought I, the torch Of honeysuckle, jessamine, and monthly rose; And met returning from the well-shear'd fields The village gleaners, and a busy throng Of happy beings laden with the yields Of their day's labour. I, a contrast made "Twixt them and rude mechanics. These naught know Of the town's vicious ways. And then I stay'd And listen'd to them. But I turn'd to go A sickness o'er me came. A strong fear A shout there came to my astonish'd ear. "T was this:- "Nix my dolly, Pals, fake away!" RUY LOPEZ, THE CHESS-BISHOP. A LEGEND OF SPAIN. "The flood of time is rolling on We stand upon its brink, whilst THEY are gone Have YE done well? They moulder flesh and bone ALL the world believes that Ruy King Philip sat in the Escurial, playing chess with Ruy Lopez, that great master of our mighty art, who knelt by especial favour with one knee on a cushion of brocade, while a party of nobles were standing grouped around, in varied attitudes of sorrowful and serious attention. The morn was bright as the orangegroves of Granada; and the sun streamed through the lofty arches of the windows upon the gorgeously decorated hall, shaded by curtains of violet-coloured velvet, light as the dreams of hope upon the mind of sanguine youth. But the day-star of heaven seemed at that moment hardly congenial with the deep gloom which evidently hung upon the royal presence; for the brow of Philip was dark as the thunder-cloud, ere it breaks on the hills of the Alpuxarres. The monarch glanced from beneath his bushy eyebrows frequently and fiercely towards the arched doors of entrance; the chiefs exchanged, stealthily, many sad looks of meaning intelligence; and THE CHESSE was clearly not uppermost in the mind of any one man present, saving our priest, Ruy Lopez, the learned clerk of Zafra, who was plodding out a certain forced checkmate in some half-dozen moves, and in whose inward soul was working a warm struggle as to which ought to be allowed to take the upper hand upon this occasion, his own proper and dear reputation as the first chessplayer in the country, or the politic deference due to Europe's most Catholic majesty, Philip, lord of the fair lands of Spain and her dependencies. The portals swung suddenly open, and a coarse, sinister-looking man, presented himself somewhat abruptly before the king, awaiting silently the royal command to speak. The intruder's appearance was highly unprepossessing; and the courtiers imperceptibly drew up as though a serpent had glided in among them. Of sturdy frame, attired in a doublet of shabby black leather, the face of the man presented the low-arched forehead and sordid mouth peculiar to the habitual exercise of vulgar passions, while his features acquired a cast of increased brutality from the deep scar which traversed them obliquely from brow to chin, burying itself in a huge uncombed beard, as coarse as hemp. Philip trembled as he made an effort to speak, and a quivering galvanic shudder passed around. The new comer was Fernando Calavar, Spain's chief executioner. Is he dead ?" choked Philip, in hoarse and smothered tones. My liege, he lives as yet. A grandee of Spain, he pleads the privileges of his order; and I may not deal with one of the pure Hidalgo strain, without more especial bidding from your majesty.” A subdued murmur of approbation broke from the proud peers around, and the blood of old Castile danced brighter upon lip and cheek. The young Alonzo d'Ossuna suddenly donned his cap of estate; and his bold example was followed by the majority of those present, their white plumes towering forestlike in the air, as they thus appeared to enter a tacit protest in defence of their rights at large, by availing themselves of the privilege immutably held by Spain's grandees to stand covered at will before their sovereign. The sullen Philip knit his brows yet closer, and struck his clenched hand heavily upon the chess-board, 66 By our own council has he been tried and condemned to death. What dares the traitor now demand ?" inquired the king. "Sire, he asks to die by axe and block, and to be left alone in solitude during the last three hours of life with a priest." "Granted," said Philip. "Is not our own confessor in attendance upon him, as I commanded ?" 66 He is, may it please your majesty; but the duke is contumacious, and laughs the holy Diaz di Zilva to scorn. He says he will take absolution from none under the rank of a bishop in Spain's church, such being the prerogative of a noble doomed to die by sentence of law for high trea son. "Certainly, such is our privilege," boldly interposed the gallant D'Ossuna; "and we claim our cousin's rights at the hand of our king." Our rights and the justice of the king are indissoluble," repeated Don Diego de Tarraxas, count of Valencia, an aged man of gigantic height, with flowing silvery hair and beard; who, clothed in steel, and bearing the baton of Spain's highconstable, stood carelessly leaning on his sheathed Toledo. "Our rights and privileges!" cried half-a-dozen nobles in a breath. Philip started up from his ebony throne, and the thunder-cloud exploded, "By the bones of the Campeador, by the soul of St. Iago, have I sworn," cried the monarch, sternly and collectedly, "neither to eat nor to drink, at board or banquet, until I have looked upon the head of Guzman the traitor! But Tarraxas has well spoken,-the justice of the king binds up the rights of all his subjects. Time flies. Lord-constable, where nearest dwells a bishop?" "I have had ever more to do with the camp than the church," bluntly replied De Tarraxas. "Your ma jesty's royal almoner, Don Silvas, here present, may surely better answer the question.' Don Silvas y Mendez tremblingly took up the word,— "May the king live!-the Bishop of Segovia is attached to his majesty's household; but he died last week, and the fiat to appoint his successor even now lies on the council-table, subject to the pope's veto. A convocation of the heads of the church is being held at Valladolid, and all the bishops will doubtless be at this time there. I know that the Bishop of Madrid left his palace yesterday to attend that meeting." A faint smile played across the lip of D'Ossuna. He was of the Guzman blood, and the condemned duke was his dearest friend. The king caught his glance, and a new expression shone in his own leaden, heavy eye, "We are king," said Philip, slowly and austerely, and our throne may not be altogether mocked. This sceptre is, it may be, light in weight, but the fool that sports with it will find it crush him like an iron pillar. Our holy father the pope is somewhat in my debt on the score of obligation, and we fear not his disapproval of the step we are about to take. If the King of Spain can beget a prince, he can surely create a bishop. Stand forth, Ruy Lopez, bishop of Segovia! Stand forth, priest, I command, and assume thy rank in the church!" Ruy Lopez arose from his footstool, but hesitated," May it please your majesty "Peace, lord-bishop, and obey thy sovereign's word! The formalities of thy instalment remain for a future day. Our subjects cannot fail to respect the will of the king in this matter. Bishop of Segovia, away with Calavar to the chamber of the condemned! Shrive the soul from sin, and at the end of three hours |