that would throw the black "big drom" (as Lablache would call him) of a military band into comparative obscurity. Abroad she might, perhaps, be mistaken for a belle limonadière, for she really is a fine woman; but at home she would pass for nothing on earth but one of those respectable housekeepers that (for a conseederation) charitably entertain, at bed and board, husbands and wives who are unconscious of the face of a clergyman. To do this lady justice, if she obtrudes too prominently on the eye, she generally leaves the ear in repose: but then her cousin, a lively and lady-like personage enough as to her outward woman, has picked such a desperate quarrel with Priscian, and makes such an hash of her v, v's and her w, w's, that the Minories could not match her. Besides, she affects to know everything and person of fashion, and talks of duchesses and marchionesses as if she had ever seen a live one. The consequence of this pretension may be foreseen. She never dines with me but she keeps me in a perpetual stew! Again, I have two or three brothers comfortably settled in trade. One is a praiseworthy soap-boiler, another does business in Mark Lane, and a third, who is of a speculative turn, and is ready to make money in any way that occurs, has dignified himself with the appellation of a general merchant. Now these three are really kind, good, serviceable fellows enough at home; and they rather shine than otherwise in their proper sphere. But the first is a furious lover of truth, and likes to give people "a bit of his mind." At my table he told the French ambassador that he hated all foreigners, and avowed his conviction that Louis Philippe deserved to be hanged. The second is a terrible politician, and makes a point of quarrelling with every one who differs from him by a shade; while the third has the mania for paying off the national debt, and of talking of himself and his concerns in no measured terms of boastful importance. This gentleman is a great engrosser of conversation, and after having bored a whole company at dinner with the Chancellor of the Exchequer's budget, he got old Admiral Spadille by the button, and kept him for an entire evening from the card-table, to listen to the history of his last contract for pigs, and his venture of raw Irishmen that he had consigned to Van Diemen's Land. In the exuberance of his personal vanity, he not only thinks himself a perfect Aristippus, but is satisfied with everything that belongs or is any way connected with him. He speaks of his brother, the bankrupt, as if he were a Lord of the Treasury, and rather thinks it an honour to have an uncle who was fined a thousand pounds for "robbing the Exchequer;" nay, he had the hardihood to remind Lord Lofty that his eldest great uncle had been coachman to his lordship's grandfather, and asked him if he knew his second cousin who married the Three Compasses, next to his lordship's lodge. At These "miseries of human life" your philosopher perhaps may deride, and think me a very little soul for deeming them vexations; but a man may be as noble-minded as you please, and yet he must submit to the level of the little-minded if he means to live with them. bottom I am as proud as my brother can be of the honest industry of him of the Three Compasses, whose children were all put well forward in the world by his care, and who died respected and beloved by all his friends; but that will not alter the insolent contempt of his lordship for a parvenu; and I can perceive a marked alteration in his bearing towards me on account of my collateral ancestor. But Lord Lofty is not only in other respects a desirable and pleasant acquaintance, but possesses the power of serving me most essentially. Am I then so wrong for wincing at a gaucherie that lowers me in his estimation? But the matter is still worse with some other relations whom I have not yet introduced to my reader. I have a cousin, a lame duck, with his son who has a partiality for imitating my hand-writing, which he does with such success, that it has cost me, more than once, several hundred pounds to save him from the gallows. I have an aunt who drinks a bottle of Madeira at dinner, and whom no lodging-house keeper in Brighton will accept for a tenant, lest she should set fire to her bedcurtains and burn the house. Then there is a sister of hers, who has taken to field-preaching, and was had up to Bow Street for being the cause of a breach of the peace, in which, by-the-by, she was the only sufferer. This lady I can never keep out of my house, though she is offended at all we do and all we leave undone; and she actually brought a cobbler of grace to lecture us for giving balls, and for not eating cold meat on a Sunday. Would to Heaven that this were the worst! My mind strangely misgives me that this curer of souls, or of soles, has a design on the poor lady's soft heart; so that I stand a good chance of being claimed as a nephew at the club-house door, some fine day, by the lad of wax, who is not very remarkable for prudence even when he is sober, and that is not perfectly the case during the greater number of the four-and-twenty hours. Vain, indeed, would it be to attempt an enumeration of all the ways in which these "little more than kin and less than kind" come against me. In the first place, they one and all think because I do business with the minister (for I hold a place), and sometimes dine with him, that I can provide for a race, which, like that of Agamemnon, "ne finit jamais." It is to no purpose that I tell them that I have no claims, that I have received too many favours myself to give any more trouble, or remind them of what I hitherto have done in that way for the family. The refusal is set down for ill-will, pride, and a false shame at my homely connexions, whom I strive to keep out of sight. As for borrowing money, I say nothing-that is è medio ductus acervo; and, besides, if some of my kind relations mistake me for a loan-fund bank, others, I believe, would not refuse me pecuniary accommodation (on sufficient security), if I would condescend to ask it. Neither do I so much complain of their besieging my villa; for what else is the country made for, but to feast curates, apothecaries, and humble relations? I own, however, I should like sometimes to have the house to myself, and to be able to see my own friends, without bringing them into quite such close contact with my domestic ridicules. One instance, however, I cannot pass over; and I defy society to produce a case of greater hardship. It was not many weeks ago that I was seated, tête-à-tête, in the opera-box of Lady (certainly the most exclusive fine lady in the chronicles of fashion), when, who should spy me but a worthy brushmaker from Aldersgate-street, who was planted bolt upright in the pit beside his porpoise of a wife? Now this plague was not even a relation, but only a man I am compelled to dine at table with, some twice a year, at my brother's, the soap-boiler. I saw him and his cara sposa well enough, and looked with all my might the other way, to avoid his customary and rather demonstrative salutations. But judge my confusion, to see them enter the box between the acts, where, maugre my lady's silence, her frowns, and, at last, her open inuendoes, they remained till the end of the evening. Shall I tell you of the compliments I received from the fine men who tried to drop into the box, but were prevented by the bulky forms of the intruders? Shall I enumerate the thousand-and-one absurdities these intruders did, said, and looked? or need I mention that sentence of banishment has passed on me, not only from that fatal box, but, what is worse, from the parties of House, which I cannot but consider as of dangerous consequence to my place and popularity in one of the best circles of London? Among the number of my relations there were, as it may be supposed, some upon whom I could look with more satisfaction. To the rising generation, more especially, I was disposed to think and act with affection. My property I meant for them at my death, and I made great efforts to direct their education, to form their minds, and their hearts, while my best pleasures arose from the little pleasures and gratifications I was enabled to procure for them. But even here disappointments predominated, and these were too cruel to bear exposure in the present narrative. To tell you of those who pined through their short course to an early grave; of those who have resisted all kindness, and returned it by the most heartless ingratitude; to mention the young wife fading prematurely under a husband's ill treatment; the generous boy lost in boundless dissipation; or to speak of him who died at sea, not in the discharge of his duty, but in an accursed duel forced on him by a brutal bully, were only to open wounds (as yet hardly closed) to no useful purpose. Suffice it to say, that, as a general rule, I have found my relations (good, bad, and indifferent alike) a charge; and the very few among them whom I would have chosen as friends, had the choice been permitted me, have been, by death, misfortune, or ill health, sources of the most painful anxiety and bitter regret. So that every way I have been a loser; and unless one or two of the most opulent of my connexions should make themselves agreeable by making themselves scarce, and should, in dying, remember (not sweet Argos) but my sweet self, in the shape of a good fat legacy, I fear I must go to my grave regretting that I was not bred in a foundling hospital, or, at least, the only child of an only child, and the descendant of a family which, for generations unknown, has escaped from the burden of collateral branches. μ MARTIAL IN LONDON. Impromptu under a Marquee at Fleming House. THE sudden gloom which had succeeded to the pale light, had the effect of rendering every object still more indistinct to the astonished crew of the Ter Schilling. For a moment or more not a word was uttered by a soul on board. Some remained with the eyes still directed to where the phantasmagoria had been seen, others turned away full of gloomy and foreboding thought. Hillebrant was the first who spoke ; turning round to the eastern quarter, and observing a light on the horizon, he started, and seizing Philip by the arm, cried out, "What's that ?" "That is only the moon rising from the bank of clouds," replied Philip, mournfully. "Well!" observed Mynheer Kloots, wiping his forehead, which was damped with perspiration, "I have been told of this before, but I have mocked at the narration." Philip made no reply. Aware of the truth, and that he was so deeply implicated, he felt as if he were a guilty person. The moon had now risen above the bank, and poured her mild pale light over the slumbering ocean. With a simultaneous impulse, every one directed their eyes to where the strange vision had been seen; and all was a dead, dead calm. Since the apparition, the Pilot Schrifton had remained on the poop; he now gradually approached to Mynheer Kloots, and looking round, said "Mynheer Kloots, as pilot of this vessel, I tell you that you must prepare for very bad weather." "Bad weather," said Kloots, rousing himself from a deep reverie. "Yes, bad weather, Mynheer Kloots. There never was a vessel which fell in with- -what we have just seen, but met with disaster soon afterwards. The very name of Vanderdecken is unlucky-He! he!" Philip would have replied to this sarcasm, but he could not, his tongue was tied. "What has the name of Vanderdecken to do with it!" observed Kloots. "Have you not heard, then? The captain of that vessel we have just seen is a Mynheer Vanderdecken-he is the Flying Dutchman!" "How know you that, pilot ?" inquired Hillebrant. "I know that, and much more, if I chose to tell," replied Schrifton; "but never mind, I have warned you of bad weather, as is my duty;" and, with these words, Schrifton went down the poop-ladder. "God in heaven! I never was so puzzled and so frightened in my life," observed Kloots. "I don't know what to think or say.-What think you, Philip-was it not supernatural?" "Yes," replied Philip, mournfully. "I have no doubt of it." "I thought the days of miracles had passed," said the captain; "and *Continued from page 188, No. cxcviii. that we were now left to our exertions, and had no other warning but from the appearance of the heavens.” "And they warn us now," observed Hillebrant. "See how that bank has risen within these five minutes-the moon has escaped from it, but it will soon catch her again-and see, there is a flash of lightning in the north-west." "Well, my sons, I can brave the elements as well as any man, and do my best. I have cared little for gales or stress of weather; but I like not such a warning as we have had to-night. My heart's as heavy as lead, and that's the truth-Philip, send down for the bottle of schnapps, if it is only to clear my brain a little." Philip was glad of an opportunity to quit the poop; he wished to have a few minutes to recover himself and collect his own thoughts. The appearance of the Phantom Ship was, to him, a dreadful shocknot that he did not fully believe in its existence, but still, to behold the vessel, and to be so near to him-that vessel in which his father was fulfilling his awful doom-that vessel on board of which he felt sure that his own destiny was to be worked out, had given a whirl to his brain. When he heard the sound of the boatswain's whistle on board of her, eagerly did he stretch his hearing to catch the order given, which would have been, he was convinced, in his father's voice. Nor were his eyes less called to his aid in his attempt to discover the features and dress of those moving on her decks. As soon as he had sent the boy up to Mynheer Kloots, Philip hastened to his cabin and buried his face in the coverlid of his bed, and then he prayed-prayed until he had recovered his usual energy and courage, and had brought his mind to that state of composure which could enable him to look forward calmly to danger and difficulty, and feel prepared to meet it with the heroism of a martyr. It was not more than half an hour that Philip remained below. When he returned to the deck, what a change had taken place. When he left, the vessel was floating motionless on the still waters, and her lofty sails hung down listlessly from the yards. The moon soared aloft in her beauty, reflecting the masts and sails of the ship in extended lines upon the smooth sea. Now all was dark; the water rippled short and broke in foam-the smaller and lofty sails had been taken in, and the vessel was cleaving through the water before the wind, which, in its fitful gusts and angry moanings, proclaimed too surely that it had been awakened up to wrath and was gathering its strength for destruction. The men were still busy reducing the sails, but they worked gloomily and discontented. What Schrifton, the pilot, had said to them, Philip knew not; but that they appeared to avoid and look upon him with feelings of ill-will was evident. And each minute the gale increased. "The wind is not steady," observed Hillebrant; "there is no saying from which quarter the storm may blow. It has already veered round five points, Philip; I don't much like the appearance of things, and I may say with the captain that my heart is heavy." "And, indeed, so is mine," replied Philip; "but we are in the hands of a merciful Providence." "Hard a-port! flatten in forward! brail up the trysail, my men! Be smart!" cried Kloots, as the ship was taken aback from the wind chopping round to the northward and westward, and careened low to its force. The rain now came down in torrents, and it was so dark that, with difficulty, they could perceive each other on the deck. |