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would never sell them; "least of all," said the charitable go-between, resolved to lose no opportunity of bringing about good understanding among neighbours by telling the whole truth "to a parcel of ranting Methodists!" I must add, that in return for these opprobrious names, the lady was visited by four letters at the least every month, acquainting her with the precise hot-hearth which was reserved for her in a place I would rather not mention; and which she would occupy at no very distant period. Mrs. Bell is at my shoulder, telling me I have already jeered too much at good things. I don't mean it and she knows, as I tell her, what came of all this tumultuous work. The Fadgett fancy spread: and the people of the neighbourhood began to watch each other police-wise. One pretty woman was tabooed as "unsafe," because she would not confine herself, while singing Moore,* to Moore's "Sacred Melodies."One rheumatic old gentleman-a steady church-goer-was denounced as "a sabbath-breaker," because he continued to put Dapple into his one-horse-chaise; whereas the Fadgetts, a wiry tough pair, who had never known a day's illness, walked to church. They worried the pacific old Rector into taking a curate, who was promised to be a second edition of Mr. "Satan" Montgomery, handsomer, more flowery-more in earnest!-with additions and adaptations suitable to the country. And then they worried the curate, because his ism proved to be not precisely their ism, and because he had just sense enough to object to Miss Fadgett singing the Parables set by herself to airs from "La Gazza Ladra" in the Infant Schools. And the brother wrote high and mighty letters, and the Reverend voluminous replies; and it fell out that at last, the whole creditable correspondence was printed in The Meddler for the comfort of those who were thirsting after truth, and burning to teach

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* "Fact," (as Miss Edgeworth used to say in the notes to her novels). By the way, a classed catalogue of things admissible and inadmissible, with their habitats (as botanists have it), is wanted for the use of the timid and those desirous of "getting on."-One would like to know, for instance, how Mademoiselle Déjazet met the request of the very Great Lady; who, desirous of seeing the Pearl of the Palais Royal act, while in London, sent an embassy to her, begging to be informed on what evening she would play her "least improper characters!"-One would be glad to fathom the philosophy of the training of the Sunday school-mistress, who, while at tea with one of her own profession, after discussing divers matters of infant discipline, asked, "Do you make your children curtsey at the name of the Dwhen they're reading?—I always do mine. IT'Š SAFER!”

peace and goodwill by main force! The Fadgetts had grubbed up the May-pole on Fash Gate Green, which had kept its standing through the reign of China-monsterism and classical elegance:to set up in its stead the Pillory and the Stake.

Well, it is not always the wiry and tough who hold out the longest; still less those "who have never had a day's illness," that live to tell what becomes of rheumatic old gentlemen who drive gigs on Sundays, when "they drive no more on this side of the grave. The Fadgetts were people pretty sure to wear themselves out (though I have known some gifted with propensities like theirs, live to a spectral age, breeding confusion to the very last). A fit of righteous indignation into which Mr. F. was thrown, "on the breaking out," as he called it, of the Mathew Temperance fanaticism, hastened his end. He died, and his warnings were printed in a book, and himself canonized. The sister died, too,sorry, it would seem, for having been so violent during her life, since the Reverend of her nomination was wont to avoid the subject of her last moments, with as awful a brow and as heavy a sigh, as if hers had been a case of rank -ism. For some years my rounds did not lead me near Fash Gate; indeed, while in the occupation of its last-named inhabitants, there was small comfort in entering its walls, unless one had an appetite for "Morning Portions," at breakfast; "Words in Season," at lunch; Divinity sauced not with love-apples, but with peppery polemies, for dinner; tracts at tea; and so forth; and was able to say Yes," and speak amiss of the Pope in the right places. So far from this; with me, such people palsy every good thought and good word I can command at the best of times. Their ways are immodest, to say the least. But not long since, being called upon to extend a journey, methought I would make a circuit of a few miles, just to see how the old place was looking; and the woods where I had so often gone bird-nesting, when Mrs. China Fadgett was Lady of the Manor.

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No railways can go near the estate, it lies so high among the hills, so I had no idea of finding the outward aspect of matters in any wise changed. The trees seemed grown taller, and the roads narrower; that was all; and the Hall made a poorer figure than I had fancied; even though Progress had laid his strange hands on the old pot-house, which used to stand near the avenue gates, had faced its front with stone, had broken out at its side two Tudor oriels, and converted the dingy old Black Ram which used to creak as harshly on a windy night as though the sign had been the Old

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Black Raven, into The Fadgate Arms. There was some motto over the door, which I could not read; but I had heard that nowa-days an inscription is thought nothing of, if the passer-by can make it out. So I went in at once, and called for a glass of Fash Gate ale, hoping-since the day was cold-that, among the other 'choppings and changings" which that unlucky place had seen, the Brewery had at least been spared. For though the world goes round, and John Bull must go with it, I am not so sure about John Barleycorn-I mean as to the making of ale; for I would not be thought to hold with the "stand-still starvationers,” as a friend of mine designates that very select society, more generally called by the Post "The Country Party."

While mine host and a young, civil man, with a face strange to me, was away fetching the liquor, I went to a window, which looked across the park, for I was in a humour-the liveliest of us has such fits to catch a sight of the ruins among the leafless winter trees. Ruins, bless you! I stood fixed by what I beheld; and it was a good moment ere I could exclaim, “ Why those Fadgetts have been at it again! What's all this?" The ruins were gone. Gone the old arch and its waving ivy; and even the crucifix, which any one who.did not know it might have mistaken, from a distance, for the stump of a tree; and in their place, something so newly old and so anciently new! For a moment the thing puzzled me. It could not be an alms-house; for fewer pinnacles would have served, and there would have been no need of that large window on which the sun was playing so pleasantly ;—nor a church, for churches are not grown round with low buildings, like barns, inasmuch as they have few windows, yet not like barns, because of a row of gilt crosses on the roof. Everyone will have guessed already what it was ;-new as the idea was to me who was thinking no harm. Shade of the Low-Protestant Miss Fadgett, with her tracts and her Readers, her Tabernacle-tunes and her account-books posted up of other people's merits and peccadilloes! A spick-and-span-new Monastery!

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"Here's your ale, sir," said the Boniface, with a rueful smile, as he jogged my elbow to attract my attention; we 're all quietlike, down here, to-day. My folk and the rest are up at Fash Gate town End to look at the show."

"The show! Is there a wedding, then-or a funeral ?”

"Bless you, sir! There's no one to be married worth seeing sin' our Squire brought home his lady five years ago. It's the new building they are for handselling and they've got their

Bishop, as they call it, down from York, and a procession, and flags, like ours on club-days used to be before Miss Fadgett made such a rout over 'em. Well, to be sure, and she was as hard as ever a Pope or Pagan of the lot! But what would she say if she were alive now, I wonder? I tell my Missis, she 'll get up and walk; fetched out of her grave by these Roman doings!"

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?"

"But the Priory yonder is not on the Fash Gate property Yes, but it be, sir, begging pardon; the Squire bought it, sir, the year he was married; and they 've been as busy as bees among 'em ever since. Never was a Fadgett but he was fantastical; and I have a right to speak. Mayhap, sir, you did not know they had all turned, root and branch ?"

With that the landlord took down from the wall "a picture," as he called it, being a framed inscription, in black letter with emblazoned borders, and a gentleman and lady with wings and gold plates round their heads, and no shadows on their faces, like Queen Bess, keeping ward at each corner.

Can ye read that ?" said mine host; "it's not every one

as can.

The " 'picture" told that, on the eve of a certain Saint (name omitted here, as too personal), "George Gregory Fadgett, his wife, their two children, Augustin and Barbara, and their entire household, had entered the Holy Roman Catholic community." "And their entire household!" mused I, half aloud.

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'Ay, belike," was the comment. That's the Fadgett way! No pleasing the Squire else; and the people at the Hall had had enough of Mr. and Miss Fadgett and their psalm-singers. But, for aught I can see,-I don't say so much to my Missis, though,-one was as peremptory as the other; six and half-a-dozen, sir I dare say you know the family. They were always a 'cute set, and very rhapsodical! Another glass, sir? The gig's at

the door."

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Well," thought I, as I drove away, catching as I crept up the hill something like a nasal chaunt, and too much put out with this new Fadgett foppery to have the heart to stay and see" the show, or to attack the Hall, had that been suitable on a day of such high solemnity-" that fellow is no fool. It does run in the blood. First China, then Greece, now Rome. The Fadgetts must have their toys. And the last, who would have fainted at the very name of a Catholic, was as peremptory in following her own Pope, as any of them. What next, I wonder?"

HIS MAJESTY THE PUBLIC.

THE British Constitution recognises two Kings at Arms. The railways have their king. The regal title, therefore, may be ascribed to another than the actual prince, without infringement of the royal prerogative; and we protest that in speaking of the Public as his Majesty, we meditate and compass no offence whatever against our Sovereign Lady the Queen, her crown and dignity. Need we be more explicit? Well then. His Majesty the Public lays no claim to the royal arms. The lion and the unicorn are none of his cattle; and though his maxim certainly is "Dieu et mon Droit," he does not usurp it for his heraldic motto. Neither does he pretend to the crown, ball, and sceptre; but acknowledges the property of those goods and chattels to be lawfully vested in the hands of their present possessor; and to the wish that she may long wear and hold them, he is ready to respond "Amen!" Further, he renounces all and every pretension to first fruits, deodands, waifs, estrays, escheats, treasure-trove, flotsam and jetsam. He is a king, throneless, crownless, sceptreless, without a court, yet not without courtiers. However, he is untended by any lords and ladies in waiting, gold sticks, silver sticks, grooms of the stole, chamberlains, gentlemen pensioners, and beef-eaters; and his only maids of honour are those he buys at Richmond. Last, and not least, so far from levying taxes, all he has to do with them is to pay them.

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Yet His Majesty the Public is, doubtless, one of the mightiest monarchs in the world. His dominion and authority have been acquired, comparatively, quite of late. For as many as a thousand years, they were extremely limited indeed for many centuries it was hardly apparent that there was such a person, much less king, in existence. His personal and natural rights, to say nothing of his will and pleasure, were never consulted; and it may be said that he passed the earlier ages of his life in slavery. It will be seen that His Majesty is a very ancient monarch; and it is probable that he will continue to reign till doomsday; of him, therefore, it may be literally asserted, that the king never dies.

So nearly absolute a potentate is His Majesty the Public, that