intrusted with the large fortune which I hereby bequeath to him."

"What's all this?" exclaimed Mr. Swipes" you don't mean that we're humbugged ?-In trust ?~ how does that appear?-where is it?"-Mr. Drawl depositing his spectacles, looking up at the ceiling, and scratching the underneath part of his chin, pointed to the two fatal words, which towered conspicuously above the multitude of their companions, and the brewer's nether jaw gradually fell down till it crumpled and crushed the frill of his shirt. Mr. Currie, with a pale face and goggle-eyes, stood staring at his co-trustee, not exactly understanding what it all meant, though he saw by his countenance that there was some sudden extinction of their hopes. As the will was dated several years back, Frank only wanted three weeks of the stipulated period of possession, and as he hastily revolved in his mind all the annoyances he had occasioned his aunt, and the kind generosity with which she had treated him, his eyes remained fixed upon the carpet, and the tears fell fast upon the backs of his crossed hands.

MISS HEBE HOGGINS'S ACCOUNT OF A LITERARY SOCIETY IN HOUNDSDITCH.

LETTER I.

SIR,-You will please to consider the red ink in which the commencement of this letter is indited, as emblematic of my blushes when I make the confession that my father is a cooper in Houndsditch; not that there is any thing degrading in the profession, for we have poets who have started into celebrity from the inferior stations of cowherds, ploughmen, and shoemakers, but, alas! my poor father is not likely to achieve greatness, still less to have it thrust upon him, for he understands nothing whatever but his business. Determined that his own defect of educa tion should not be entailed upon his daughter, he sent me to a genteel boarding-school at Kensington, where my associates, in the petulancy of youthful pride, présently assailed me with every species of ridicule on account of my parent's vulgar occupation. One christened him Diogenes, and with an air of mock-gravity inquired after his tub; another told me I resembled him, inasmuch as I carried a hogshead upon my shoulders, (which was a gross libel upon my physiognomy); a third, quoting Addison, exclaimed,

"Why does he load with darts

His trembling hands, and crush beneath a casque
His wrinkled brows?"

while a fourth, whenever I ventured to sing, observed that I was then in my proper element, as I was favouring them with a few staves. Nothing reconciled me to this spiteful persecution but the superior success with which I prosecuted my studies. Mortified vanity stimulated me to aspire to a higher rank of intellect, as some atonement for inferiority of station; and my object was so far attained, that I was enabled to retaliate upon fashionable dunces the sneers and taunts which they levelled against city minxes and upstart vulgarians. Among my schoolfellows there were several who feared me, and many who refrained from open quizzing; but they all held themselves aloof from any intimacy, and I found the pride of surpassing some in their studies, and of inflicting pain upon the feelings of others whenever my own were attacked, but a poor compensation for the unsociableness to which I was condemned by their open or suppressed contempt.

Even this miserable comfort was denied me when I left school and was taken home into Houndsditch, for my own acquirements only served to render more striking, and infinitely more galling, the wretched illiterateness of my parents. Conceive, my dear Mr. Editor, the horror of hearing my father, who had yielded to my mother's wishes, in the selection of a polite seminary for my studies, inquire whether I had larnt to darn stockings and make a pudding! But even this Vandalism was less grating to my soul than the letter which my mother wrote a few days after my return, to the parent of one of my schoolfellows, inquiring the character of a cook, which she

thus commenced: "Mrs. Hoggins presents her compliments to the Honourable Mrs. Hartopp, as I understand Betty Butter lived in your family as cook, Mrs. H-begs Mrs. H- will inform her whether she understands her business, and I hope Mrs. H— will be particular in stating to Mrs. H-," &c.—and thus she continued for a whole page, confounding first, second, and third persons, and bepuzzling Mrs. H-'s in a most astounding commutation of initials and individualities. At my earnest solicitation this letter was condemned, and a second composed which started with this inauspicious exordium :-" Betty Butter, whom, according to her own account, lived two years with you as cook," and proceeded in a similar strain of verbs without nominatives, and relatives without antecedents. This also she consented to cancel, not without sundry peevish exclamations against the newfangled English and nonsensical pedantry taught at the schools now-a-days, none of which were heard of in her time, although the world went on quite as well then as it did now. Having tartly reprimanded me for my saucy offer of inditing a proper note, she took out a new crow-pen, reflected for some minutes upon the best method of arranging her ideas, and finally recommenced thus :—“ Madam,—Understanding Betty Butter lived with you as cook, has induced me to write you these few lines," &c.: and this horrific epistle, terminating as awfully as it began, was actually despatched! O Sir! imagine the abomination to all my grammatical nerves and philological sympathies! From such gothic society I found it absolutely ne

cessary to emancipate myself, and I have the pleasure to inform you, that after innumerable difficulties and delays, from the ignorance of some and the ridicule of others, I have succeeded in establishing a Blue-stocking Society in Houndsditch, which, if I am not much mistaken, will eventually rival the most celebrated literary associations that have been formed from the days of Pericles down to those of Lorenzo de' Medici and Dr. Johnson. Considering the soul to be of no sex, I have admitted males of undoubted genius into our club, and we can already boast of several names that only want the means and opportunity to become immortal. The hitherto Boeotian realm of Houndsditch begins to be fertile in classical and Attic associations. The Sugar-baker's upon Tower Hill we have consecrated to Grecian reminiscences as the Acropolis, and the Smoking-room upon its roof is hallowed to our eyes as the Parthenon; the Tower is our Piræus, and the houses on each side of the Minories are the long walls; Aldgate Pump is the Grotto of Pan; Whitechapel Church is the Ceramicus; the East India Company's Warehouses in Leadenhall-street are the Temple of Theseus; the extremities of Fenchurch-street are the Propylæa; and the Synagogue in Duke's-place the Odeum. Thus you see, Sir, we are upon classic ground in whatever direction we move; while, to complete the illusion, we have named the great kennel leading to Tower-hill the Ilyssus, and I am credibly assured it is quite as large as the original. Our Academus, a room which we have hired in Houndsditch, is planted with pots of geranium and myrtle, to imitate the celebrated garden