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behold you again, I would not part with you without a confession of my weakness. I will not deny that what Humphrey Chetham stated, and which you have never contradicted—namely, that you loved me, for I must speak out-has produced a strong effect upon me. I have endeavoured to conquer it, but it will return. Till I knew you, I never loved, Viviana.'

'Indeed!' she exclaimed.

'Never,' he replied. The fairest had not power to move me. But I grieve to say,-notwithstanding my struggles,-I do not continue equally insensible.'

'Ah!' she ejaculated, becoming as pale as death.

'Why should I hesitate to declare my feelings? Why should I not tell you that-though blinded to it so long-I have discovered that I do love you? Why should I hesitate to tell you that I regret this, and lament that we ever met?'

'What mean you?' cried Viviana, with a terrified look.

6

'I will tell you,' replied Fawkes. Till I saw you, my thoughts were removed from earth, and fixed on one object. Till I saw you, I asked not to live, but to die the death of a martyr.'

'Die so still,' rejoined Viviana. Forget me-oh! forget me.'

'I cannot,' replied Fawkes. I have striven against it. But your image is perpetually before me. Nay, at this very moment, when I am about to set out on the enterprise, you alone detain me.'

'I am glad of it!' exclaimed Viviana, fervently. prevent you could save you !'

Oh that I could

'Save me!' echoed Fawkes, bitterly. You destroy me.' 'How?' she asked.

'Because I am sworn to this project,' he rejoined; ‘and if I turned from it, I would perish by my own hand.'

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'Oh! say not so,' replied Viviana, 'but listen to me. Abandon it, and I will devote myself to you.'

Guy Fawkes gazed at her for a moment passionately, and then covering his face with his hands, appeared torn by conflicting emotions. Viviana approached him, and pressing his arm, asked in an entreating voice, 'Are you still determined to pursue your dreadful project?' 'I am,' replied Fawkes, uncovering his face, and gazing at her; 'but, if I remain here a moment longer, I shall not be able to do so.' 'I will detain you then,' she rejoined, and exercise the power I possess over you for your benefit.'

'No!' he replied, vehemently. It must not be. Farewell, for ever." And breaking from her, he rushed out of the room.

As he gained the passage, he encountered Catesby, who looked abashed at seeing him.'

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'I have overheard what has passed,' said the latter, and applaud your resolution. Few men, similarly circumstanced, would have acted as you have done.'

'You would not,' said Fawkes, coldly.

'Perhaps not,' rejoined Catesby. But that does not lessen my admiration of your conduct.'

'I am devoted to one object,' replied Fawkes, and nothing shall turn me from it.'

'Remove yourself instantly from temptation, then,' replied Catesby. 'I will meet you at the cellar beneath the Parliament House to-morrow night.'

With this, he accompanied Guy Fawkes to the door; and the latter, without hazarding a look behind him, set out for London, where he arrived at nightfall.

On the following night, Fawkes examined the cellar, and found it in all respects as he had left it; and, apprehensive lest some difficulty might arise, he resolved to make every preparation. He, accordingly, pierced the sides of several of the barrels piled against the walls with a gimblet, and inserted in the holes small pieces of slow-burning match. Not content with this, he staved in the tops of the uppermost tier, and scattered powder among them to secure their instantaneous ignition.

This done, he took a powder-horn, with which he was provided, and kneeling down, and holding his lantern so as to throw a light upon the floor, laid a train to one of the lower barrels, and brought it within a few inches of the door, intending to fire it from that point. His arrangements completed, he arose, and muttered,

'A vessel is provided for my escape in the river, and my companions advise me to use a slow match, which will allow me to get out of harm's way. But I will see the deed done, and if the train fails, will hold a torch to the barrels myself.'

At this juncture, a slight tap was heard without.

Guy Fawkes instantly masked his lantern, and cautiously opening the door, beheld Catesby.

'I am come to tell you that Parliament is prorogued,' said the latter. The House does not meet till the fifth of November. have another month to wait.'

We

'I am sorry for it,' rejoined Fawkes. I have just laid the train. The lucky moment will pass.'

And, locking the door, he proceeded with Catesby to the adjoining

house.

They had scarcely been gone more than a second, when two figures muffled in cloaks emerged from behind a wall.

The train is laid,' observed the foremost, and they are gone to the house. You might seize them now without danger.'

'That will not answer my purpose,' replied the other. I will give them another month.'

'Another month!' replied the first speaker. Who knows what may happen in that time? They may abandon their project.'

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'There is no fear of that,' replied the other. But you had better go and join them.'

Merrie England in the olden Time:

OR, PEREGRINATIONS WITH UNCLE TIM AND MR. BOSKY, OF LITTLE BRITAIN,

DRYSALTER.

BY GEORGE DANIEL.

Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?' -SHAKSPEARE,

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CHAPTER VI.

Southwark Fair ranked next to St. Bartholomew, and comprehended all the attractions for which its rival on the other side of the water was so famous. On the 13th day of September, 1660, John Evelyn visited it. I saw,' said this entertaining sight-seer, ' in Southwark, at St. Margaret's Faire, monkies and apes daunce, and do other feats of activity on ye high rope: they were gallantly clad à la mode, went upright, saluted the company, bowing and pulling off their hats; they saluted one another with as good a grace as if instructed by a dauncing master; they turned heels over head with a basket having eggs in it, without breaking any; also with lighted candles in their hands, and on their heads, without extinguishing them, and with vessels of water, without spilling a drop. also saw an Italian wench daunce and performe all the tricks of y tight rope to admiration. All the Court went to see her. Likewise here was a man who tooke up a piece of iron cannon, of about 400lbs. weight, with the haire of his head onely.' September 15, 1692, the curious old narrator paid it another visit. 'The dreadful earthquake in Jamaica this summer' (says he) was prophanely and ludicrously represented in a puppet-play or some such lewd pastime, in the fair of Southwark, whch caused the Queene to put downe that idle and vicious mock shew.' The fair, however, revived, and outlived her Majesty many merry years. How slept the authorities some seasons ago, when Messrs. Mathews and Yates dramatised an 'Earthquake' at the Adelphi !

The Bowling Green in Southwark was the high 'Change of the Fair. Mr. Fawkes, the renowned conjurer, exhibited at his booth, over against the Crown Tavern, near St. George's Church. Dramatic representations, music and dancing, the humours of Punch and Harlequin, a glass of 'good wine, and other liquors,' were to be had at the several booths held at the Golden Horse-shoe,'* the 'Half-Moon Inn,'t and other well-known houses of entertainment.

At Joseph Parnes's Musick Rooms, at the sign of the Whelp and Bacon, during the time of Southwark Fair, is at the Golden Horse-Shoe, next to the King's Bench, where you may be entertained with a variety of musick and dancing, the like not in the Fair, nor never before; where you may be accommodated with a glass of good wine, and other liquors; and likewise several dances, danced after the Scotch, Italian, and English ways; likewise a Girl that dances with sharp swords, the like not in England.'-Temp. W. 3.

Sept. 12. 1723.-At Reynold's Great Theatrical Booth, in the Half-Moon Inn, near the Bowling-Green, in Southwark, during the time of the Fair, will be presented that celebrated opera, called the Beggar's Wedding,-a new opera called Southwark Fair, or the Sheep-Shearing,-an opera called Flora,-and an entertainment called The Humours of Harlequin.'

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Thither resorted Lee and Harper to delight the denizens of Kent Street, Guy's Hospital, and St. Thomas s, with Guy of Warwick, Robin Hood and Little John, the comical adventures of Little John and the Pindar's wife, and the fall of Phaeton! In July, 1753, the Tennis Court and booths that were on the Bowling green, with some other buildings where the fair used to be held, were pulled down; and shortly after that pleasant Bowling Green was converted into a potato and cabbage market!

Southwark, or Lady Fair, has long since been suppressed. Thanks, however, to the 'great painter of mankind,' that we can hold it as often as we please in our own breakfast parlours and drawingrooms! The works of Hogarth are medicines for melancholy. If the mood be of Jacques's quality, a most humorous sadness,' it will revel in the master's whim; if of a deeper tinge, there is the dark side of the picture for mournful reflection. Though an unsparing satirist, probing vice and folly to the quick, he has compassion for human frailty and sorrow. He is no vulgar caricaturist, making merry with personal de ormity; he paints wickedness in its true colours, and if the semblance be hideous, the original, not the copy, is to blame. His scenes are faithful transcripts of life, high and low. He conducts us into the splendid saloons of fashion ;-we pass with him into the direst cells of want and misery. He reads a lesson to idleness, extravagance, and debauchery, such as never was read before. He is equally master of the pathetic and the ludicrous. He exhibits the terrible passions, and their consequences, with almost superhuman power. Every stroke of his pencil points a moral; every object, however insignificant, has its meaning. His detail is marvellous, and bespeaks a mind pregnant with illustration, an eye that nothing could escape. Bysshe's Art of Poetry, the well-chalked tally, the map of the gold mines, and the starved cur making off with the day's lean provision, are in perfect keeping with the distressed poet's ragged finery, his half-mended breeches, and all the exqui. site minutiae of his garret. His very wig, most picturesquely awry, is a happy symbol of poetical and pecuniary perplexity. Of the same marking character are the cow's horns, rising just above the little citizen's head, in the print of Evening,' telling a sly tale; while the dramatis persone of the Strollers' Barn, the flags, paintpots, pageants, clouds, waves, puppets, dark-lanterns, thunder, lightning, daggers, periwigs, crowns, sceptres, salt-boxes, ghosts, devils, and tragedy queens, exhibit such an unique miscellany of wonders, that none but a Hogarth ever thought of bringing together. Turn, by way of contrast, to 'Gin Lane, and its frightful accompaniments!

Hogarth went quite as much to see Southwark Fair and its fun (for which he had a high relish) as to transfer them to his canvass. 'Tis a holiday with the mountebanks, and he has caught them in all their grimacerie and glory. A troop of strollers, belonging to Messrs. Cibber and Bullock, attitudinising and making mouths, as a prologue to the Fall of Bajazet,' are suddenly surprized into the centre of gravity by the breaking down of their scaffold, and Kings, Queens, Turks, tumblers, monkeys, and Merry Andrews, descend topsy-turvy into a china-shop below! At Lee and Harper's grand booth are the celebrated Wooden Horse of Troy, the Temptation of Adam and Eve, and Punch's Opera. A fire-eater is devouring his

red-hot element, and his periwigged Jack-Pudding is distributing his quack nostrums. A tragedy hero has a brace of bailiffs in his train; and a prize-fighter, with his bare sconce dotted with sable patches, and a nose that might successfully bob for black-beetles against a brick wall, mounted on a blind bone-setter, perambulates the fair, challenging the wide world to mortal combat! These, with a pretty female drummer of Amazonian proportions; an equi. librist swinging on the slack rope; a juggler with his cups and balls; a pickpocket and a couple of country boobies; a bag-piper; a danc. ing dog; a dwarf drummer, and a music-grinder, make up a dramatis persone only to be equalled by the Strolling Players and the March to Finchley.

*

Pannard, a minor French poet, whom Marmontel styles the La Fontaine of Vaudeville, has written some verses admirably descriptive of au opera behind the

scenes.

J'ai vu le soleil et la lune

Qui tenoient des discours en l'air :
J'ai vu le terrible Neptune

Sortir tout frisé de la mer.

J'ai l'aimable Cythéré

Au doux regard, au teint fleuri,

Dans un machine entourée

D'amours natifs de Chambérie.'

And, after having seen a great number of other things, equally curious, he concluded with

'J'ai vu des ombres très-palpables

Se trémousser aux bords du Styx:
J'ai vu l'enfer et tous les diables
A quinze pieds du Paradis.'

Some years ago, a strolling company at Ludlow, in Shropshire, printed a play-bill nearly as large as their drop-scene. It announced The Doleful History of King Lear and his Three Daughters, with the Merry Conceits of his Majesty's Fool, and the valorous exploits of the Duke of Gloucester's Bastard; all written by one William Shakespeare, a mighty great poet, who was born in Warwickshire, and held horses for gentlemen at the sign of the Red Bull in St. John's-street; where was just such another playhouse as this! [!!!] at which we hope the company of all friends round the Wrekin.

All you who would wish to cry or laugh,

Had better spend your money here than in the alehouse by half;

And if you wish more about these things to know,

Come at six o'clock to the barn in the High Street, Ludlow,

Where, presented by live actors, the whole may be seen,

So Vivat Rex, God save the King! not forgetting the Queen

Just as a strolling actor at Newcastle had advertised his benefit, a remarkable stranger, no less than the Prince Annamaboo, arrived, and placarded the town that he granted audiences at a shilling a head. The stroller, without delay, waited on the proprietor of the Prince, and for a good round sum prevailed on him to command his Serene Highness to exhibit his august person on his benefit night. The bills of the day announced, that between the acts of the comedy Prince Annamaboo would give a lively representation of the scalping operation, sound the Indian war-whoop in all its melodious tones, practise the tomahawk exercise, and dine à la cannibal. An in. telligent mob were collected to witness these interesting exploits. At the conclusion of the third act his Highness marched forward, flourishing his tomahawk, and shout. ing, Ha, ha!-Ho, ho!' Next entered a man with his face blacked, and a piece of bladder fastened to his head with gum; the Prince, with an enormous carving. knife, began the scalping part of the entertainment, which he performed in a truly imperial style, holding up the piece of bladder as a token of triumph. Next came

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