London at which I could find him. He gave me as his direction the same lodging at which I had so often visited him. "If there be no vacancy there for me," said he, "I shall leave word

where I am to be found. But I would gladly be where I was, before-" He did not finish the sentence. I pressed his hand and left him.

Some days have elapsed; we are in London, my father with us; and Roland has permitted Austin to tell me his tale, and received through Austin all that Vivian's narrative to me suggested, whether in extenuation of the past, or in hope of redemption in the future. And Austin has inexpressibly soothed his brother. And Roland's ordinary roughness has gone, and his looks are meek, and his voice low. But he talks little, and smiles never. He asks me no questions; does not to me name his son, nor recur to the voyage to Australia, nor ask why it is put off,' nor interest himself as before in preparations for it-he has no heart for anything.

The voyage is put off till the next vessel sails, and I have seen Vivian twice or thrice, and the result of the interviews has disappointed and depressed me. It seems to me that much of the previous effect I had produced is already obliterated. At the very sight of the great Babel-the evidence of the ease, the luxury, the wealth, the pomp, the strife, the penury, the famine, and the rags, which the focus of civilisation, in the disparities of old societies, inevitably gathers together-the fierce combative disposition seemed to awaken again; the perverted ambition, the hostility to the world; the wrath, the scorn; the war with man, and the rebellious murmur against Heaven. There was still the one redeeming point of repentance for his wrongs to his father-his heart was still softened there; and, attendant on that softness, I hailed a principle more like that of honour than I had yet recognised in Vivian. He cancelled the agreement which had assured him of a provision at the cost of his father's comforts. "At least, there," he said, "I will injure him no

more!"

But while, on this point, repentance seemed genuine, it was not so with regard to his conduct towards Miss

VOL. LXVI.-NO. CCCCVI.

Trevanion. His gipsy nurture, his loose associates, his extravagant French romances, his theatrical mode of looking upon love intrigues and stage plots, seemed all to rise between his intelligence and the due sense of the fraud and treachery he had practised. He seemed to feel more shame at the exposure than at the guilt; more despair at the failure of success than gratitude at escape from crime. In a word, the nature of a whole life was not to be remodelled at once-at least by an artificer so unskilled as I.

After one of these interviews, I stole into the room where Austin sat with Roland, and, watching a seasonable moment when Roland, shaking off a reverie, opened his Bible, and sat down to it, with each muscle in his face set, as I had seen it before, into iron resolution, I beckoned my father from the room.

PISISTRATUS.-I have again seen my cousin. I cannot make the way I wish. My dear father, you must see him.

MR CAXTON.-I!-yes, assuredly, if I can be of any service. But will he listen to me?

PISISTRATUS.-I think so. A young man will often respect in his elder, what he will resent as a presumption in his contemporary.

MR CAXTON.-It may be so: (then, more thoughtfully,) but you describe this strange boy's mind as a wreck !— in what part of the mouldering timbers can I fix the grappling-hook? Here, it seems that most of the supports on which we can best rely, when we would save another, fail us. Religion, honour, the associations of childhood, the bonds of home, filial obedienceeven the intelligence of self-interest, in the philosophical sense of the word. And I, too!-a mere book-man! My dear son!-I despair!

PISISTRATUS. No, you do not despair-no, you must succeed; for, if you do not, what is to become of

M

Uncle Roland? Do you not see his heart is fast breaking?

MR CAXTON.-Get me my hat; I will go. I will save this Ishmael -I will not leave him till he is saved!

PISISTRATUS (some minutes after, as they are walking toward's Vivian's lodgings.)-You ask me what support you are to cling to! A strong and a good one, sir.

MR CAXTON.-Ay, what is that? PISISTRATUS.-Affection! There is a nature capable of strong affection at the core of this wild heart! He could love his mother; tears gush to his eyes at her name-he would have starved rather than part with the memorial of that love. It was his belief in his father's indifference or dislike that hardened and embruted him -it is only when he hears how that father loved him, that I now melt his pride and curb his passions. You have affection to deal with!-do you despair now?

My father turned on me those eyes so inexpressibly benign and mild, and replied softly, "No!"

We reached the house; and my father said, as we knocked at the door, "If he is at home, leave me. This is a hard study to which you have set me; I must work at it alone." Vivian was at home, and the door closed on his visitor. My father stayed some hours.

On returning home, to my great surprise I found Trevanion with my uncle. He had found us out—no easy matter, I should think. But a good impulse in Trevanion was not of that feeble kind which turns home at the sight of a difficulty. He had come to London on purpose to see and to thank us.

I did not think there had been so much of delicacy-of what I may call the "beauty of kindness"-in a man whom incessant business had rendered ordinarily blunt and abrupt. I hardly recognised the impatient Trevanion in the soothing, tender, subtle respect that rather implied than spoke gratitude, and sought to insinuate what he owed to the unhappy father, without touching on his wrongs from the son. But of this kindness-which showed how Trevanion's high nature of gentleman raised him aloof from that

coarseness of thought which those absorbed wholly in practical affairs often contract-of this kindness, so noble and so touching, Roland seemed scarcely aware. He sat by the embers of the neglected fire, his hands grasping the arms of his elbow-chair, his head drooping on his bosom; and only by a deep hectic flush on his dark cheek could you have seen that he distinguished between an ordinary visitor and the man whose child he had helped to save. This minister of state-this high member of the elect, at whose gift are places, peerages, gold sticks, and ribbons--has nothing at his command for the bruised spirit of the half-pay soldier. Before that poverty, that grief, and that pride, the King's Counsellor was powerless. Only when Trevanion rose to depart, something like a sense of the soothing intention which the visit implied seemed to rouse the repose of the old man, and to break the ice at its surface; for he followed Trevanion to the door, took both his hands, pressed them, then turned away, and resumed his seat. Trevanion beckoned to me, and I followed him down stairs, and into a little parlour which was unoccupied.

After some remarks upon Roland, full of deep and considerate feeling, and one quick, hurried reference to the son-to the effect that his guilty attempt would never be known by the world-Trevanion then addressed himself to me with a warmth and urgency that took me by surprise. "After what has passed," he exclaimed, "I cannot suffer you to leave England thus. Let me not feel with you, as with your uncle, that there is nothing by which I can repay-no, I will not so put it. Stay and serve your country at home it is my prayer-it is Ellinor's. Out of all at my disposal, it will go hard but what I shall find something to suit you." And then, hurrying on, Trevanion spoke flatteringly of my pretensions, in right of birth and capabilities, to honourable employment, and placed before me a picture of public life-its prizes and distinctions-which, for the moment at least, made my heart beat loud and my breath_come quick. But still, even then, I felt (was it an unreasonable pride?) that there was something

that jarred, something that humbled, in the thought of holding all my fortunes as a dependency on the father of the woman I loved, but might not aspire to;-something even of personal degradation in the mere feeling that I was thus to be repaid for a service, and recompensed for a loss. But these were not reasons I could advance; and, indeed, so for the time did Trevanion's generosity and eloquence overpower me, that I could only falter out my thanks, and my pro

mise that I would consider and let him know.

With that promise he was forced to content himself; he told me to direct to him at his favourite country-seat, whither he was going that day, and so left me. I looked round the humble parlour of the mean lodging-house, and Trevanion's words came again before me like a flash of golden light. I stole into the open air, and wandered through the crowded streets, agitated and disturbed.

Several days elapsed-and of each day my father spent a considerable part at Vivian's lodgings. But he maintained a reserve as to his success, begged me not to question him, and to refrain also for the present from visiting my cousin. My uncle guessed or knew his brother's mission; for I observed that, whenever Austin went noiseless away, his eye brightened, and the colour rose in a hectic flush to his cheek. At last my father came to me one morning, his carpet-bag in his hand, and said, "I am going away for a week or two. Keep Roland company till I return." "Going with him?" "With him." "That is a good sign." "I hope so; that is all I can say now."

The week had not quite passed when I received from my father the letter I am about to place before the reader; and you may judge how earnestly his soul must have been in the task it had volunteered, if you observe how little, comparatively speaking, the letter contains of the subtleties and pedantries (may the last word be pardoned, for it is scarcely a just one) which ordinarily left my father a scholar even in the midst of his emotions. He seemed here to have abandoned his books, to have put the human heart before the eyes of his pupil, and said, Read, and unlearn!"

66

TO PISISTRATUS CAXTON. "MY DEAR SON,-It were needless to tell you all the earlier difficulties

I have had to encounter with my charge, nor to repeat all the means which, acting on your suggestion, (a correct one,) I have employed to arouse feelings long dormant and confused, and allay others, long prematurely active, and terribly distinct. The evil was simply this: here was the intelligence of a man in all that is evil-and the ignorance of an infant in all that is good. In matters merely worldly, what wonderful acumen! in the plain principles of right and wrong, what gross and stolid obtuseness! At one time, I am straining all my poor wit to grapple in an encounter on the knottiest mysteries of social life; at another, I am guiding reluctant fingers over the hornbook of the most obvious morals. Here hieroglyphics, and there pothooks! But as long as there is affection in a man, why, there is Nature to begin with! To get rid of all the rubbish laid upon her, clear back the way to that Nature, and start afresh that is one's only chance.

6

"Well, by degrees I won my way, waiting patiently till the bosom, pleased with the relief, disgorged itself of all its perilous stuff,'-not chiding -not even remonstrating, seeming almost to sympathise, till I got him Socratically to disprove himself. When I saw that he no longer feared methat my company had become a relief to him-I proposed an excursion, and did not tell him whither.

us up to the dog-star,) and, where that avoidance was not possible, travelling by night, I got him into the neighbourhood of the old Tower. I would not admit him under its roof. But you know the little inn, three miles off the trout stream?—we made our abode there.

"Well, I have taken him into the village, preserving his incognito. I have entered with him into cottages, and turned the talk upon Roland. You know how your uncle is adored; you know what anecdotes of his bold, warm-hearted youth once, and now of his kind and charitable age, would spring up from the garrulous lips of gratitude! I made him see with his own eyes, hear with his own ears, how all who knew Roland loved and honoured him-except his son. Then I took him round the ruins-(still not suffering him to enter the house,) for those ruins are the key to Roland's character-seeing them, one sees the pathos in his poor foible of family pride. There, you distinguish it from the insolent boasts of the prosperous, and feel that it is little more than the pious reverence to the dead-the tender culture of the tomb.' We sat down on heaps of mouldering stone, and it was there that I explained to him what Roland was in youth, and what he had dreamed that a son would be to him. I showed him the graves of his ancestors, and explained to him why they were sacred in Roland's eyes! I had gained a great way, when he longed to enter the home that should have been his; and I could make him pause of his own accord, and say, 'No, I must first be worthy of it.' Then you would have smiled-sly satirist that you are-to have heard me impressing upon this acute, sharp-witted youth, all that we plain folk understand by the name of HOME-its perfect trust and truth, its simple holiness, its exquisite happiness-being to the world what conscience is to the human mind.

And

innocence-to protect her name! A good name is something, then. Your father was not so wrong to prize it. You would like yours to be that which your sister would be proud to own!'

"While we were talking, Blanche suddenly came to the spot, and rushed to my arms. She looked on him as a stranger; but I saw his knees tremble. And then she was about to put her hand in his—but I drew her back. Was I cruel? He thought so. But when I dismissed her, I replied to his reproach, Your sister is a part of Home. If you think yourself worthy of either, go and claim both; I will not object.' She has my mother's eyes,' said he, and walked away. I left him to muse amidst the ruins, while I went in to see your poor mother, and relieve her fears about Roland, and make her understand why I could not yet return home.

"This brief sight of his sister has sunk deep into him. But I now approach what seems to me the great difficulty of the whole. He is fully anxious to redeem his name to regain his home. So far so well. But he cannot yet see ambition, except with hard, worldly eyes. He still fancies that all he has to do is to get money and power, and some of those empty prizes in the Great Lottery, which we often win more easily by our sins than our virtues. (Here follows a long passage from Seneca, omitted as superfluous.) He does not yet even understand me—or, if he does, he fancies me a mere bookworm indeed, when I imply that he might be poor, and obscure, at the bottom of fortune's wheel, and yet be one we should be proud of! He supposes that, to redeem his name, he has only got to lacker it. Don't think me merely the fond father, when I add my hope that I shall use you to advantage here. I mean to talk to him to-morrow, as we return to London, of you, and of your ambition: you shall hear the result.

"At this moment, (it is past midnight,) I hear his step in the room above me. The window-sash aloft opens-for the third time; would to Heaven he could read the true astrology of the stars! There they are bright, luminous, benignant. And I seeking to chain this wander

ing comet into the harmonies of heaven! Better task than that of astrologers, and astronomers to boot! Who among them can loosen the band of Orion?'-but who amongst us may not be permitted by God to have sway over the action and orbit of the human soul?

"Your ever affectionate father,

A. C."

Two days after the receipt of this letter, came the following; and though I would fain suppress those references to myself which must be ascribed to a father's partiality, yet it is so needful to retain them in connexion with Vivian, that I have no choice but to leave the tender flatteries to the indulgence of the kind.

"MY DEAR SON,-I was not too sanguine as to the effect that your simple story would produce upon your cousin. Without implying any contrast to his own conduct, I described that scene in which you threw yourself upon our sympathy, in the struggle between love and duty, and asked for our counsel and support; when Roland gave you his blunt advice to tell all to Trevanion; and when, amidst such sorrow as the heart in youth seems scarcely large enough to hold, you caught at truth impulsively, and the truth bore you safe from the shipwreck. I recounted your silent and manly struggles-your resolution not to suffer the egotism of passion to unfit you for the aims and ends of that spiritual probation which we call LIFE. I showed you as you were, still thoughtful for us, interested in our interests-smiling on us, that we might not guess that you wept in secret! Oh, my son-my son! do not think that, in those times, I did not feel and pray for you! And while he was melted by my own emotion, I turned from your love to your ambition. I made him see that you, too, had known the restlessness which belongs to young ardent natures; that you, too, had your dreams of fortune, and aspirations for success. But I painted that ambition in its true colours: it was not the desire of a selfish intellect, to be in yourself a somebody-a something-raised a step or two in the social ladder, for the pleasure

of looking down on those at the foot, but the warmer yearning of a generous heart; your ambition was to repair your father's losses-minister to your father's very foible, in his idle desire of fame-supply to your uncle what he had lost in his natural heir-link your success to useful objects, your interests to those of your kind, your reward to the proud and grateful smiles of those you loved. That was thine ambition, O my tender Anachronism! And when, as I closed the sketch, I said, 'Pardon me know not what delight a father feels, when, while sending a son away from him into the world, he can speak and think thus of him! But this, you see, is not your kind of ambition. Let us talk of making money, and driving a coach-and-four through this villanous world,'-your cousin sank into a profound reverie, and when he woke from it, it was like the waking of the earth after a night in spring-the bare trees had put forth buds!

you

"And, some time after, he startled me by a prayer that I would permit him, with his father's consent, to accompany you to Australia. The only answer I have given him as yet, has been in the form of a question: 'Ask yourself if I ought? I cannot wish Pisistratus to be other than he is; and unless you agree with him in all his principles and objects, ought I to incur the risk that you should give him your knowledge of the world, and inoculate him with your ambition?' He was struck, and had the candour to attempt no reply.

"Now, Pisistratus, the doubt I expressed to him is the doubt I feel. For, indeed, it is only by home-truths, not refining arguments, that I can deal with this unscholastic Scythian, who, fresh from the Steppes, comes to puzzle me in the Portico.

"On the one hand, what is to become of him in the Old World? At his age, and with his energies, it would be impossible to cage him with us in the Cumberland ruins; weariness and discontent would undo all we could do. He has no resource in books-and I fear never will have! But to send him forth into one of the overcrowded professions-to place him amidst all those disparities of social life,' on the rough stones of