the grace and beauty of his brother, Master Alfred, born two years before. It was Master Alfred's lot never to have been called a boy at all-but a little cherub; and he was not designated the son of his parents, but their precious pet. He was never allowed to cry, lest he should spoil his beautiful face; while Matt, having no face to spoil, was permitted to cry for whatever he wanted, without getting it. The consequence was, that everybody pronounced the elder to be a sweettempered darling, and the younger to be a hideous, squalling little brute. Everybody declared at the same time, that one would come to the hulks, while the other would, as high-sheriff of the county, be riding in a coach and six.

But it so happens that the silver spoons which are supposed to be found in some mouths on their first appearance in this world, often turn out to be Sheffield ware; while the wooden ladles lurking in mouths of a different kind prove to be lignum vitæ.

Let us see how this principle applies to the case of the two Starkes. The scanty resources of the family were lavished upon the elder, and his education formed a large item in the account; but as he was such a handsome boy, he was kept half his time at home, and when at school small pains were bestowed upon him, because the master had never known a handsome boy turn out a scholar. Nor was he popular with his schoolfellows. Because he was so very good-looking, they called him conceited; and cowardly, because he once took a kick from a boy less than himself, rather than fight at the risk of getting a punch that might possibly damage the symmetry of his nose. They also charged him with meanness, inasmuch as he never gave away a crumb of the plum-cake which his aunt sent him weekly, with strict orders to eat every bit, as it was good for his complexion.

!

Just as the Adonis had entered his sixteenth year, his father died. Parental opinion of the external characteristics of the two sons was indicated in his last words. As the film came over his eyes, and he was asked, perhaps for the interest of science, by one of those obliging persons who will chatter to dying people, whether he could yet discern any earthly object? "Yes," he articulated, "I can yet see-see my eldest son, beautifully yes; and my younger-plain-very plain !" The father dying poor, before he had succeeded in obtaining the premiership, or any other situation, for his favourite son, the aunt became the pet's patron, and sent him to Cambridge. There, however, the reliance which he placed on the favourable influences of a fine face led to a neglect of the due cultivation of the inside of his head; and he had the misfortune of missing the first honours of the university in consequence of being plucked.

When the time came for determining upon a profession, an entrance into the navy was all but effected for him-only it so happened that a great naval authority declared at once that the lad hadn't the cut of a sailor's jib; but that such a face would make its fortune at the Horse Guards. His good aunt would have purchased him a commission in the army, but that she could never bear to see his nice face disfigured with nasty moustaches.

Then he might have been taken into partnership by his uncle, the rich corn-factor; but unluckily it was discovered that a handsome face would not tell in the Corn Market-no such thing having ever been seen there. Moreover, his distant relation, the sporting baronet in Berkshire, would have had him down there all the year, to help him

at the proper season in riding after the hounds; only he was deucedly afraid, as the young fellow was so handsome, that one or two of his daughters would fall in love with him.

At last his generous patron, the good aunt, died, leaving all her property to another member of the family, in the conviction that nobody with such a face could be long without a fortune.

After waiting some time to afford various young heiresses proper opportunities of proposing an elopement with him, he in a fit of hunger, which if protracted might be injurious to his contour, accepted a situation at a magnificent silk-and-muslin emporium in the city, where the looking-glass on every side is unexceptionably polished, and the cravats of the gazers are immaculately white.

But as for poor pug-nosed melancholy Matt, he had to crawl out of the cradle, and scramble into his first pair of trousers by himself. The little victim might have quoted the pathetic lines of Haynes Bayly

"How blessed are the beautiful! love watches o'er their birth!
Oh Beauty! in my nursery, I learn'd to know thy worth;
For even there I often felt forsaken and forlorn,

And wish'd-for others wish'd it too-I never had been born."

He was not sent to school, for want of funds; yet after a few years Matt began to prosper. A schoolmaster in the neighbourhood, after looking at him steadily, and watching his motions for an hour, offered to teach him for nothing-on the bare calculation, it seems, that the young scarecrow would quietly yield him a profit, by frightening half the other boys out of their appetite.

Matt soon crept on, not only in the knowledge of books, but of boys; for having no interest or pleasure in contemplating his own face, he early began to study the faces of others. He had one considerable advantage over the rest of the world-he was never at a loss to know what another was thinking of him while viewing his countenance.

A story is related of a certain eminent person, who had the unfortunate habit of uttering his most secret thoughts aloud, that when an amiable young lady had charmed him with some expressions of maidenly simplicity and affection, he took both her hands, and looking into her face, thought, but in reality said also, as follows:-" You are a charming little lady, a dear delightful girl-but exceedingly plain !" Now if all mankind, looking into the face of Matthew, had been as unintentionally candid as poor Lord - he could not have more correctly ascertained their opinions. As "true self-love and social” are the same, so self-knowledge in his case was identical with the knowledge of others. He freely allowed all the boys to stare, or to steal sidelong looks, or to glance in an opposite direction with irrepressible aversion as he passed-to express wonder, terror, dislike, even disgust. All he did, was ever to wear the same look; never to render his face ten times more odious by frowning or scowling at the affront; still less to render it a hundred times more odious by trying to smile and ogle his companions out of their sensations. And so at length, as the lads always saw the same face bending over the lesson, or patiently watching in the playground the game which others were enjoying, they got quite used to it; and being used to it, they didn't mind it so much, and at last not at all; and when they had ceased to mind it, they got quite to like it; and in short, long before he left school, this son of Medusa, the youthful Gorgon, had become a universal favourite. He never went out of his way to win liking, yet he won it.

He never had a crumb of plum-cake to give away, but he might have surfeited on the gifts of others if he would have accepted them.

When his father died, his mother bowed over the weeping Matt her fine oval mourning face, wondered who on earth it was that the poor boy took after, and gave him a seemingly excellent piece of advice. Matt having said that he should now look up to his aunt for support, the fond mother solemnly warned him never, by any chance, to "look up to his aunt," if he expected the smallest favour from that lady.

Yet look up to her he did, in a manner the most imploringly, when he went on an errand for his brother, to beg the advance of twenty guineas, which it was supposed the good lady would readily give to get rid of her petitioner; and whether it was the confusion attendant upon her fright, or pity for the hideous pleader, or a sense of the zeal with which he urged the suit of his handsome brother, is not certain-but she gave him, in addition, twenty for himself. So grateful was the lad, that he mentally promised himself never to go near her again.

With this sum he bought books, and paid eighteenpence to a poor old usher, to whom no face was frightful but poverty's, for a Latin lesson now and then. But as he grew in years and knowledge, he grew also in ugliness. The ordinary rule, that plain children make comely adults, did not apply in his case. What began in the positive degree ended in the superlative; so that his uncle, the factor, on sending for the lad to London, to see what could be done with him (a Caliban might be wanted at the theatres, or the painters might give him a salary to sit), was perfectly transfixed in amazement at the improvement which had taken place as he grew worse. The ugly had become the sublime-the grotesque had swollen into the grand. There was now a meaning in the monstrosity-an expression, a spirit, where there was but a vacant griffin's face before.

"Yes," said the scrutinizing relative, "I discern something more than ordinary in you. Come with me."

And from that hour Matthew Starke was the successful climber who "upward turns his face;" nor be it said of him that he ever looked scornfully down upon the degrees by which he ascended. He never suffered his passions to appear in his countenance. Acute, self-possessed, and trustworthy, he contrived to hold every inch of ground as he won it; and he was contented to win slowly, and after an obstinate fight. The corn-factor saw something more and more in his face every day. "My nephew," he would say, introducing him. "An honest fellow, sir, though now in Mark-lane-knows how to speak English.” "Yes," would be the half-audible comment" plain English."

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My nephew managed that transaction-did it all nobly." "It was very handsome, and like himself," would be the reply.

But Matthew never winced, never needlessly added to the natural distortion of his features. He walked, or rather moved, mysteriously about in society, knowing, as by intuition, all men's feelings towards him, and effectually working a change in them. After the shock of the first meeting, everybody saw "something" in his face; an interest was thus created; use reconciled them to the grim terror, and a strange sort of attachment ensued. If he repulsed the spectator in the morning, he as surely attracted him before night. "I shall trust this man with my affairs--he is not thinking about himself,” said one, and

a fine commission came into his hands. "This is a delightful acquaintance!" cried a mover in the great world, with great connexions"there is no conceit about him." "A sensible, moral person, no doubt," thought a third, a steady man, versed in the ways of society; "all your handsome fellows are rakes and fools."

Men of business liked him, because his personal appearance convinced them that he could never be anything but a man of business. The intellectual patronized him, to shew their contempt for vulgar prejudices, and to vindicate the superiority of mind over matter. Three-fourths of the men about town courted his acquaintance, as one so much uglier than themselves an invaluable foil to their own graces, natural and acquired. Husbands introduced him to their wives, to shew them what sort of a partner might have fallen to their lot; and wives presented him to their daughters, quite satisfied that, even were he as rich as Rothschild, he could never play Romeo.

He

Thus the ugliest man in the community obtained, as soon as the first shock was over, the key that admitted him to all its avenues. found that though an open homage was offered up to beauty, the secret tribute was paid to ugliness. Everybody felt safe with him-and at the same time, everybody, however plain, felt handsomer in his presence. Self-interest and personal vanity were alike gratified in his company. "Oh, sovereign beauty!" he exclaimed, in the midst of his successes- -"oh, sovereign beauty! till now I never knew thee." The regal principle he alluded to was the beauty of ugliness.

He bore, all this time, a striking resemblance to some of the strange devices on coach-panels and plate, but the likeness was less and less recognised. Such is the power of custom, and so entirely did first impressions wear out, that a lady who had screamed when he crawled into the drawing-room, three months before, wondered, one night, why Mr. Starke never danced; and when a stranger remarked that the quiet gentleman eating sandwiches was a horrid fright, the prettiest young person of the party exclaimed, with a small tone of surprise, "Do you think so ?"

In the midst of his town-prospects, an invitation reached him from his distant relative, the Berkshire baronet. "This Mark-lane monster," thought Sir Joseph, "will be of use down here. If he is so knowing about corn in London, he may help to set my acres in order. Nothing was to be done with his handsome brother; but my girls are not in danger now. It's only like asking the Saracen's head or the Bull-in-mouth."

And so Sir Joseph wrote, and Matthew quitted town for Crop Hall. The baronet shrunk back at the sight of him, as though his deceased wife had escaped from the family vault; the dogs barked vociferously, the men-servants retreated; but the housekeeper, who was religiously disposed, stood her ground, rejoiced that an orang-outang had at last turned Christian. The young ladies, especially, retired in confusion to rest, and dreamed of "gorgons and monsters and chimeras dire." All, however, recovered in a day or two from their affright; the mysterious visitor "was not so black as he was painted." In three weeks, he was, to all the household, a sweet gentleman; and in three months, the eldest daughter found him, though not perhaps regularly handsome, an irresistible suitor; and as Sir Joseph's son-in-law, he became to all the county-the Deformed Transformed!

"She was a form of life and light,
That, seen, became a part of sight;
And rose where'er I turn'd mine eye,
The Morning Star of memory."

BYRON. Ir was a bright moonlight-the stars also were burning. No cloud was to be seen over the deep blue fields of heaven, but all shone and sparkled entirely cerulean. It was a night when spirits only should be abroad, for it seemed a scene too ethereal for mere mortality-unless, indeed, mortality when it is in love, for it is then refined to something beyond earth, and becomes akin to angels.

Our boat glided over the waters of the Brenta, which stretched out before us, calm and still, as if it were one unbroken mirror. Not a ripple curled its surface; not a breath of wind swept over its bosom. Before us rose the city of enchantment-Venice,

"Looking a sea-Cybele, fresh from ocean❞—

its stately palaces of marble, its tapering spires, dressed out with painted banners, variegated with the hues of gold, and silver, and purple; its lattices, through which at intervals gleamed lights, like planets peeping out of the veil of clouds; its balconies, loaded with flowers of the most brilliant dyes, and perfumed with the richest aromatic plants; occasionally, also, the sound of distant music was borne to our ears, mellowed into more delicious softness by the intervening waters, and suggestive of a thousand sweet poetic fancies. Gentle voices, too, came mingled with the silvery notes-voices that spoke of love, and all its thousand vicissitudes of rapture and despair. And thus, gazing on the stars and beaming waters, and listening to song, we sailed onward, I and the Spirit.

Thou knowest, my friend, how deeply I have read-how thoroughly I have mastered the mystic secrets of the stars. Thou knowest how, by intense and patient study-by energies directed for a long, long series of years to one bright point-by midnight vigil-by noonday aspiration-by the fiery hope within, that never knew repose, that glowed without intermission, and became the demon of my dreams-by the longremembered prophecy of my birth, that I should, ere I died become the despot of an Ethereal Essence;-thou knowest, I repeat, how I did in time subdue a Spirit to my will, made him my slave, and became endued with more than mortal power. How, or on what condition I first became possessed of the Talisman of Omnipotence, wherewith I bound him, need not now be told. To none on earth can it be revealed, for none on earth would it profit. Years had rolled over my head-years of unceasing labour, of constant disappointment, of renewed exertion; and even the hope that had so long lived within me, nerving me for every discomfiture, and bearing me onward still with unflagging wing, began to droop her crest, and to despair of success. "Had I then toiled for nothing?-for a shadow that existed not, save in my own wild fancy? Had I indeed wasted my golden youth following an ignis fatuus that guided into no path?" Such were the inquiries which

and many a time started involuntarily to my lips, and tempted me, in moments of gloom, to curse the infatuation which could have so long and so utterly befooled me. True it was, that in pursuing my