light hurts his eyes, so you must talk through the curtain.'

When Robert knocked at the cabin-door, it was certainly a stronger and more healthy voice that bade him come in' than he had expected to hear; and he found Mr Denton, though still confined to bed, very different in appearance from what he had expected. Not only was he far from looking like a sick man but lately in extremis, but even better than when he had seen him in Herne Street. 'Sit down there, Robert,' said he, pointing to a seat beside his pillow, but separated from it by the curtain which was drawn round him, and tell me about the boys.'

Robert made his report; to which the other seemed to listen attentively, and then expressed his high approval of what he had done.

'With Mr Kavanagh away, and myself ill,' said he frankly, 'I don't know how we should have got on without you. I hope you find your own position comfortable on board, as I am sure it deserves to be?'

'Yes, thank you, sir.'

It seemed ungrateful to say to this kind old invalid: But the promise that you made to me has not been kept with respect to one thing-that Mr Frank was to come with us.'

‘And did you write home, as I told you, and bid your pretty sweetheart reply to you at Liverpool?' 'I wrote home, sir, and got an answer,' replied Robert a little stiffly. Mr Denton was not his patron, and this light allusion to his Lizzie seemed unjustifiable. Moreover, there was a movement of the curtain which suggested that his companion might be laughing at him-rather heartily for a sick man.

‘And what did the young woman say, Robert?' 'Well-she sent me but ill news, sir; but such as it was, it only concerns myself and her. If Mr Kavanagh had asked me, it would be different, but you must excuse'

There was a chuckle from the bed; the curtain was drawn suddenly back, and, to Robert's intense astonishment, revealed Mr Frank Kavanagh himself, just as he had seen him on the morning after their adventure, except that he had a smoking-cap on his head, which he wore, perhaps, by way of night-cap!

There goes my scalp,' cried he, flinging the gray wig which had so long concealed his own curling locks, against the cabin wall, and Mr Denton with it, though, you see, he has kept his word with you, after all.'

Robert took the hand that was extended to him in all sincerity; he was delighted to find himself once more face to face with his friendly patron; but his prevailing idea was still that of astonishment at the means that had secured this incognito. 'So you were Mr Denton, were you, all along, sir, and Mr Wilson as well?'

'Yes,' returned Kavanagh gravely; the gay tone and the smiling look both vanished-swept away, as Robert judged, by the tender memory which the latter alias had evoked-'yes. There were reasons-political ones-why I lived in Herne Street, under a feigned name.'

'And when the police came on board, they never found you out neither! You should have seen them on deck, sir, scrutinising us all, and feeling the hair of our heads, though why they did that I cannot imagine.'

'Nor any one else, I should think,' said Kavanagh, forcing a laugh: 'they were not very sagacious, truly, but they were very civil. The inspector apologised for disturbing so confirmed an invalid as myself.-But enough of that: I wish to know of your own affairs, Robert. What of your sweetheart, and her ill news? Can she not reconcile herself to your leaving her, and taking so long a journey? Well, that is only to be expected.'

A sigh followed Kavanagh's words: Robert felt even more certain than before that what had so suddenly turned his impulsive patron's mirth to melancholy was the remembrance of pretty 'Miss Mary.'

'No, sir; it is worse than that;' and he told him of the troubles which Lizzie's letter had disclosed to him.

'Well, well,' said Kavanagh cheerfully, 'we need not be afraid that a good-looking lad like you will be cut out by your step-father; but the poverty and the poaching are real misfortunes. What a pity we could not have brought the whole family out with us.'

'Yes, indeed, sir; that is what I had in my mind when we were at Liverpool,' answered Robert. If I had known who you were, I think I should have plucked up courage to ask you that great favour, notwithstanding all the obligations

"Tush, tush!' interrupted the other kindly; 'don't talk of them. Without a treasurer and comptroller such as you have proved yourself to be, we could never have got on as we have. Even Murphy allows that. No, no; the debt is quite on the other side. As for your friends trying their luck in the New World, they can do that still; and it is much better that they should follow you when you have got settled somewhere, than help to swell the number of our incapables. If money is wanting for their passage, I will let you have it-advance it out of your salary, if you are too proud to take it as a gift. There, there; that is settled, so no more words about it.'

It was no longer a wonder to Robert that 'the boys' should have such reverence for their 'young masther,' for he felt himself as though he could have laid down his life for his sake. It was not only gratitude which affected him; there was an indescribable charm in Kavanagh's tone and manner that was wholly removed from the lad's experience, and almost seemed to him to belong to a superior being; it was not patronage, and it was not friendship, but it had the grace of the one, and the tenderness of the other.

'Indeed, sir, you overwhelm me with kindness,' was all he could answer; and I only hope I may shew myself'

'Yes, yes, we shall always be good friends, Robert,' interrupted the other; 'I am sure of that. And now about the boys-I mean my boys. Are they under the belief that I have forsaken them, or have they more faith than some people I could mention?'

'Well, sir,' replied Robert apologetically, 'they are still too sick to be very urgent about anything else, and besides, they don't see why you should not step on board any day from some island or continent.'

to their cutlasses, and who drew first blood was held the victor. The ninth enacted that no man should talk of breaking up their way of living until each had cleared a thousand pounds. But if any man should lose a limb or become a cripple in the public service, he was to have eight hundred dollars out of the common stock, and for lesser hurts proportionally. The tenth and last article provided that the captain and quartermaster should receive two shares of a prize; the master, boatswain, and gunner, one share and a half; and other officers, one and a quarter.'

Then there were persons in authority, as well as laws among you?' remarked Robert, not forgetful of Mr Maguire's anarchical opinions of the previous night.

Yes, there were; nor do I deny that such institutions are necessary. Nevertheless, so far as government was concerned, the Mother Carey was, I contend, a model vessel; nay, there is no doubt, looking at the matter as a commercial speculation, that, with ordinary prudence, any man on board might have made his thousand pounds twice over! The law against drunkenness, however, and gambling was almost a dead-letter; and the captain, as you may judge from my own case, was unnecessarily brutal.'

Was he cruel to others as well as yourself, then?' inquired Robert.

'Yes, indeed. I have known him make a poor skipper, in whose cargo he was disappointed, eat his own ears with pepper and salt! He had not the headpiece for a captain; and that is what I complain of in other societies, that men who are altogether unfit for it are trusted with authority.'

Robert was too horrified with the incident of the skipper's ears, to pay much attention to this philosophical observation; but it did not escape him that Mr Maguire was very charitable in his views with respect to piracy, and seemed inexplicably desirous to make his listener a convert to them. At that time, however, he did not think very seriously of the matter. Mr Maguire still appeared to him in the light of a lusus naturæ-a being to excite wonder rather than apprehension. He did not reflect that representations of exciting adventure, and wealth easily come by, although they had no influence upon himself, might have their weight with more ignorant and impulsive hearers; that the spark which falls innocuous on the hearthrug, will set a heap of shavings in a blaze.

'You think, then, that if you had had a wise man instead of a brute for captain, you would have made an excellent speculation of the Mother Carey,' observed Robert drily; and that each of the crew might have retired from business upon a handsome fortune?'

'Yes, I do,' said Maguire boldly. If I had not been an ass at that time, I might now myself be a rich man, for that matter.'

"They gave you a share of their gains, then, though you were but an amateur?'

'Of course they did; why the deuce should they not?' answered the other, so naively, and even indignantly, that Robert refrained from putting the inquiry that had suggested itself, as to how Mr Maguire had reconciled it to his conscience to partake of such ill-got spoil. 'Yes, I could have made my fortune,' continued he, had I had the head on my shoulders which I carry now; while Captain Grim, drunkard and gambler as he was, used to boast of his twenty thousand pounds laid

up in some place, which he was wont to say "only himself and the devil knew of; and the longest liver should take all." His weakness was drink,' continued Mr Maguire, in a deprecating tone; under the influence of which he became just what all men in authority become who have no right to their high places-tyrannical. I shall never forget his firing a brace of pistols right and left under the dinner-table one night among us all, "in order," as he explained, "that we should not forget who he was. We fined him eight hundred dollars, however, for breaking the mate's leg with one of the bullets, so that it was an expensive shot.'

'Then it must have been rather dangerous work to be even purser on board the Mother Carey?' remarked Robert.

'Oh, that was nothing,' answered Maguire coolly. 'I've-that is, I have known a man on board that ship to stand in the powder-magazine during an action in which we were likely to get the worst of it, torch in hand, with orders from the captain to send all to blazes, in case things went the wrong way.-But here's one of your sheep from the steerage in search of his shepherd.' And leaving Robert with one of his many charges, who happened to come up at that moment to make some complaint respecting rations-he had forgotten for the tenth time to bring his pannikin and other utensils on deck to receive them, and the steward had poured rice, oatmeal, and flour, peas, sugar, and tea, into one paper-bag, in a rage-Mr Maguire sauntered away. It struck Robert that he was glad to do so; that he had spoken rather more freely than he had intended to do respecting his own share in the proceedings of the crew of the Mother Carey, and this idea was strengthened by the fact, that he made no further allusion to that vessel of his own accord, and was chary of doing so even when interrogated concerning her.

The Star of Erin pursued her voyage upon the whole most favourably; there were storms and calms, of course, but for the most part she had fine weather, and there was little to complain of save the tediousness inseparable from life on shipboard. Notwithstanding what has been sung of it, this is a very prosaic state of existence; on sea, one day is more like another than it can possibly be on shore, even in the most unvarying of households. The smallest details assume a gigantic importance. The sight of a shoal of porpoises, the catching of a shark, the speaking with another ship, are events to be remembered, because they are the only ones. The sunsets of the tropics are gorgeous, but there are times when the sun is not setting, and, to say the truth, the boys' did not, as a general rule, appreciate it even when it did. Some of the women made themselves useful in cooking, and mending, and washing clothes; but the men did nothing; when they were not listening to Mr Maguire's yarns, of which they were very greedy, they lay on deck and slept all day, then went below, and slept again-a mode of existence which suited them very well. Robert had his duties, such as they were, to occupy him; he borrowed a few books from the captain, of whom he was a great favourite, and devoured them word by word; and had always by him a letter for Lizzie, ready for any homeward-bound vessel that might volunteer to be their ocean-postman. But the time hung heavily on his hands. How differently would it have passed (thought he) if he could have had Lizzie for

a fellow-passenger! how differently it would pass when she had once joined him in the Underworld! His letters were full of that bright prospect, we may be sure.

When they had been about two months at sea, an incident happened to vary the monotony of their existence. Mr Kavanagh emerged from his cabin in his own proper character. The enthusiasm among the tenants of the steerage was immense, yet not so great as it would have been, had his presence on board been unsuspected one by one, the boys'-that is, his own Tipperary boys-had been of late admitted into the secret, and these had told the rest. But even as it was, the turmoil and excitement were something startling. There was not only joy that the young master was among them; there was also triumph because a victory had been obtained over the law. The crew, indeed, were comparatively indifferent about the matter, but they formed but a small portion of the population of the Star of Erin. The captain, as Robert could not but remark, not only did not share in these manifestations of delight, but shewed some signs of displeasure. This might be accounted for by the fact, that he had been imposed upon-used as a cat's-paw by Kavanagh-for it seemed he had himself been ignorant hitherto of the identity of that gentleman with Denton; but, at all events, so it was. The steerage passengers were exceedingly uproarious that night, having had liquor supplied them by Murphy; and Robert remained on deck until a late hour, in case his services might be required amongst them. While thus keeping voluntary watch, the captain came up and spoke with him on the matter, and his manner seemed uneasy; they both agreed that to give liquor in such abundance to so excitable a throng was most injudicious: it might have been fancy, but, in the moonlight, Robert caught sight of something gleaming in the captain's breast-pocket which looked very like the butt of a revolver.

THE MIDDLE AGE OF DICKENS.* WHEN we last parted from Charles Dickens in Mr Forster's company, he was thirty years of age, and had just returned from his first visit to America. Even at that early age, he had become by far the most popular writer of his time; and yet his popularity at that epoch was as nothing to the universal admiration with which he was fated to be regarded, very literally, from the crown to the cottage, before his career was closed. His impulses, though ever good and generous, had hitherto been the chief motive-power of his writings; but from this period he took a larger and deeper view of his own responsibilities. In almost everything that he hereafter took in hand there was an underlying purpose, which, whether as a matter of mere art it was an advantage or otherwise, did without doubt disclose itself to its readers, and win them to it and him in a totally unexampled manner. We have all read Martin Chuzzlewit, and those of us who have hearts have been especially touched by that portion of it which narrates the experiences of Mark Tapley among his fellow-travellers in the steerage. The characters of these poor passengers were, it is needless

Life of Charles Dickens. By John Forster. Vol. II. Chapman and Hall.

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to say, sketched from the life; and this is what Dickens has to say of them, not in a book to catch the favour of the world, but in a private letter to his friend, containing, as many others of his letters do, passages as attractive as any in his writings,' and even more tender. 'Cant as we may, and as we shall,' he says, 'to the end of all things, it is very much harder for the poor to be virtuous than it is for the rich; and the good that is in them shines the brighter for it. In many a noble mansion lives a man, the best of husbands and of fathers, whose private worth in both capacities is justly lauded to the skies. But bring him here, upon this crowded deck. Strip from his fair young wife her silken dress and jewels, unbind her braided hair, stamp early wrinkles on her brow, pinch her pale cheek with care and much privation, array her faded form in coarsely patched attire, let there be nothing but his love to set her forth or deck her out, and you shall put it to the proof indeed. So change his station in the world that he shall see, in those young things who climb about his knee, not records of his wealth and name, but little wrestlers with him for his daily bread; so many poachers on his scanty meal; so many units to divide his every sum of comfort, and further to reduce its small amount. In lieu of the endearments of childhood in its sweetest aspect, heap upon him all its pains and wants, its sicknesses and ills, its fretfulness, caprice, and querulous endurance: let its prattle be, not of engaging infant fancies, but of cold, and thirst, and hunger: and if his fatherly affection outlive all this, and he be patient, watchful, tender; careful of his children's lives, and mindful always of their joys and sorrows; then send him back to parliament, and pulpit, and to quarter-sessions, and when he hears fine talk of the depravity of those who live from hand to mouth, and labour hard to do it, let him speak up, as one who knows, and tell those holders-forth that they, by parallel with such a class, should be high angels in their daily lives, and lay but humble siege to heaven at last. Which of us shall say what he would be, if such realities, with small relief or change all through his days, were his! Looking round upon these people: far from home, houseless, indigent, wandering; weary with travel and hard living and seeing how patiently they nursed and tended their young children: how they consulted ever their wants first, then half supplied their own; what gentle ministers of hope and faith the women were; how the men profited by their example; and how very, very seldom even a moment's petulance or harsh complaint broke out among them: I felt a stronger love and honour of my kind come glowing on my heart, and wished to God there had been many atheists in the better part of human nature there, to read this simple lesson in the book of life.'

For the poor, indeed, Dickens was ever an eloquent pleader, and their most earnest apologist, but never their patron: he respected them too much for that. And again, though never was a truer philanthropist, he would not join hands with those who imagine that they can take away from men debasing pleasures without substituting any in their place. The Total Abstinence party, for instance, seem to imagine that drunkenness is a vice inborn, incident to the poor more than to other classes, and that the gin-shop is the Alpha

and Omega of the whole matter. The causes that really lead to it are left out of their calculations, and they imagine that by cutting at the top of the Upas tree, instead of its deep and clinging roots, they can effect a clearance of it. Now, it was Dickens' view that those strong measures which the temperance folks would advocate against the gin-shop should be used against the temptations that lead to it, and the miseries which render it a temptation. Foul smells, disgusting habitations, bad workshops and workshop customs, scarcity of light, air, and water, and the absence of all easy means of decency and health,' he reckoned among the chief physical causes; and among the mental, the weariness and languor of mind' induced by the above; the desire of wholesome relaxation, the craving for some stimulus and excitement, not less needful than the sun itself to lives so passed; and last, and inclusive of all the rest, Ignorance, and the want of rational mental training, generally applied.' It is useless to talk of doing away with drunkenness, when, by contrast with his squalid home, a gin-shop seems to the poor man a palace, and while he has no other pleasure but drink to which to betake himself. In one of Dickens' excellent speeches on this subject (at the opening of the Manchester Athenæum), he protests against the danger of calling a little learning dangerous,' and speaks of the consolation and blessing afforded by it to men of the lowest estate and most hopeless means: watching the stars with Ferguson the shepherd's boy; walking the streets with Crabbe; a poor barber here in Lancashire with Arkwright; a tallowchandler's son with Franklin; shoemaking with Bloomfield in his garret ; following the plough with Burns; and, high above the noise of loom and hammer, whispering courage in the ears of workers I could this day name in Sheffield and Manchester.' In all his schemes for the amelioration of the toiling millions, Miss Coutts (as she then was) was a most ready and powerful helper. 'She is a most excellent creature, I protest to God,' he writes; and I have a most perfect affection and respect for her.'

No one in his senses, however, could doubt of the genuineness of Dickens' sympathies with the poor, even though there are some who think he praised them to extravagance; but of his 'republican notions' (as the contemptuous phrase goes) many have expressed themselves with alarm. Let us read, then, what (writing from Philadelphia in 1868) he has to say about the American political system. I see great changes here for the better, socially. Politically, no. England governed by the Marylebone vestry and the penny papers, and England as she would be after many years of such governing; is what I make of that. Of course Charles Dickens was a very 'advanced' liberal, but he never reached that point from which persons of the other way of thinking too often start, whence nothing looks to be wrong, if done under the political system of which they generally approve. He was in no sense a partisan, but judged matters upon their own merits, independently of what system might have brought them about. Of his deep sense of religion (which, because he was so witty and so bright, the dull have often called in question) there are many proofs in the present volume; though he had little patience with those who, out of admiration

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for the anise and cumin of superfluous dogmas, would omit the weightier matters of education and broad Christian faith. So early as 1843, we find him endeavouring to press upon public attention that very system of national education which has recently been sanctioned by parliament. He made an offer to describe the Ragged Schools (of which he was a strenuous supporter) for the Edinburgh Review. I have told Napier,' he writes to Mr Forster, ""I will give a description of them in a paper on Education, if the Review is not afraid to take ground against the church catechism and other mere formularies and subtleties, in reference to the education of the young and ignorant. I fear it is extremely improbable it will consent to commit itself so far." His fears were well founded; but the statements then made by him give me opportunity to add that it was his impatience of differences on this point with clergymen of the Established Church that had led him, for the past year or two, to take sittings in the Little Portland Street Unitarian chapel; for whose officiating minister, Mr Edward Tagart, he had a friendly regard, which continued long after he had ceased to be a member of his congregation. That he did so quit it, after two or three years, I can distinctly state; and of the frequent agitation of his mind and thoughts in connection with this all-important theme, there will be other occasions to speak. But upon essential points he had never any sympathy so strong as with the leading doctrine and discipline of the Church of England; to these, as time went on, he found himself able to accommodate all minor differences; and the unswerving faith in Christianity itself, apart from sects and schisms, which had never failed him at any period of his life, found expression at its close in the language of his will.' In all disturbing fancies, the book that seemed to help him most was the Life of Arnold. I respect and reverence his memory,' he writes, 'beyond all expression; every sentence that you quote from it' [the Life] is the text-book of my faith.' Another objection that has been urged against Dickens is, that his works have shewn little learning: nor, indeed, had he learning, in its strictest sense, to shew; but he was a great reader, both of French and English literature, and if his study of the latter is not very manifest in his books, it should be remembered that his exceptional originality made him necessarily more independent of such aid than other writers. Of contemporary authors he was singularly appreciative; very slow to censure, and unhesitating in his praise. His eye ranged over the whole English world of letters as it moved, and seldom did any promise of greatness, far less any proof of it, escape him. Nothing interested him more than successes won honestly in his own field, for in his large and open nature there was no hiding-place for little jealousies.' On the first appearance of the Scenes of Clerical Life' in Blackwood, he writes to Mr Forster: Do read them. They are the best things I have seen since I began my course.'

And as he praised, so he was praised-not on the claw me, claw thee' principle, but by critics compared with whom the small literary puppydogs who have been lately barking at this dead lion, are small indeed-by Jeffrey, by Sydney Smith, by Thackeray-generously, grandly, and without stint. Of the American Notes (with the