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Speak-demand; I'll answer."

"Vyvyan Joyeuse, ten years back you were my playmate in the nursery; you were called little Vyvy; you were a noisy, refractory elf, whose principal delight it was to quarrel with me, and to fight with the mastiff,-to steal my grandfather's snuffbox, and to burn Dr. Heavyhit's wig. We shook hands and parted, before I could watch the developement of powers so early indicated; and now, what have ten years done for you?" Every thing! I was then foolish and four feet high-I am now clever without vanity, and five feet ten without my shoes; I was as noisy as Bow bells-I am as quiet as a bishop; I was as obstinate as adamant-I am as pliable as a placeman; my wit was as dull as a Mussulman's firelock-it is as ready as Forsyth's patent; my hair was as white as snow-it is as dark- -no, not quite so dark, as yours; I was as clumsy as a churchwarden-I dance like Apollo; I was little Vyvy, little Pickle, little Joy, monkey, puppet, toad-and I am Vyvyan Joyeuse, Esq. of Trinity College, Cambridge."

"And here," said Julia, tapping her forehead; "here ;-has time been able to do nothing more than the deepening of the colour of the hair?"

"Why, yes,-no,-yes; I can hardly tell. I have been but an idle being; talked a great deal, seen a great deal, laughed a great deal. Now and then I contrived to pick up a mad, smattering kind of learning-studied a little character, and a little Greek-puzzled myself with reasoning, and amused myself with rhyme. Many think me a genius, and you know I was always quick."

"Quick, Vyvyan!" cried the malicious lady; "how often have you come to me with tears in your eyes, and your French lesson in your hand—”

"A truce, a truce, my dear Julia-I confess every thing. Ah! I remember well you could translate all— J'aime un peu -beaucoup passionnément-tendrement à la folie-point du tout,'-before poor Vyvyan could accomplish one stage of the passion."

Julia coloured a little, but recovered herself in a moment. "Ten years have made some alteration, I suppose; and she put her little finger solemnly to her chin, and asked, "How often have you loved now, Vyvyan?"

Vyvyan paused for a minute, looked very serious, and began to recite slowly—

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"Many a time, many a time,

In moonlight and mirth, in prose and rhyme,

Blithly and blindly, warmly and coolly,

Idly and angrily, falsely and truly;

I have wandered about in the nights of June,
All out of heart, and all out of tune,

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To serenade eyes of liquid blue,

And murmur my song to a sigh or a shoe.
This have I done for nymphs and fairies,
Kates and Carolines, Maudes and Marys;
Two or three Janes, and two or three-

Oh, no; only one Julia!" said he, sinking into prose and a bow; and we all laughed for five minutes, Julia the most heartily of us all.

"And what has brought you back to my feet so suddenly? How happens it, that out of so many idols you have none worth a distich to-night?"

"Gone, fled;-smoke, dreams, lies," said Vyvyan; "how happens it that I am mad, sentimental, grave?-why, do you not know how that

The little girl, the innocent child,
With whom I drank and danced;
With whom for a while I sang and smil❜d,
Wrote, reasoned, and romanced,
Has posted to Andover,-flood and fire!
And married with Christoper Stubbs, Esquire.

"Never mind; vive la bagatelle! I might have expected it.

66

"Così fan tutte,

Tutte fan così."

To-day I am here as free as the wind; and to-morrow I will be the slave of Julia, Julia Vernon, whom I remember at seven years old, a wicked, smiling girl, wonderfully well skilled to tease and to torment-to guess riddles, and to tell fortunes-to mimic the old for the benefit of the young-to steal the tortoiseshell from her sister's ringlets, and to play Goosey Gander with variations."

"Excellent! but I am wonderfully altered."

"Wonderfully."

"Now I am a beauty and a wit; I invent fashions and bonmots, adorn the dress circle, and shine in the Morning Post. I read Ariosto and Petrarch; I study Mozart and Rossini; musicians dedicate their songs to me; novelists draw me for their heroine; Villars raves of my waltzing; and Irvine writes sonnets to my eyebrow."

"It is well; I will dedicate, draw, rave, and write with any on the list."

"Be it so and now mark me, Vyvyan; for every bad jest I will doom you to absence, sobriety, and Zimmerman on Solitude."

"I will endeavour to become most laudably stupid."

"For every bad stanza, I condemn you to read Montgomery, (not Gerard,) and drink weak tea."

"Horrible! a vast octavo warring upon a little verse! Congo in arms against conceit!”

"And lastly," said the lady, laughing and shaking her head prettily;

'My lord, my lord, beware of jealousy." "

I will, I will," said Vyvyan, laughing too; "with the help of St. George and our Lady, I will hold mine own as I can.” "You must hold your tongue as you can, Vyvyan; for my sister is going to pass sentence;" and Julia skipped up to the throne of her sister-in-law.

Then the Attorney-General rose, and read a paper, thus: "Be it known to all whom it may concern,

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"We have accepted the rule and sovereignty of Knight's Quarterly Magazine.'

"And we appoint our trusty brother, Frederic Vernon, to take upon himself the subordinate administration of its affairs.

"And we desire that all who do us homage, tender their service to the said Frederic Vernon, at his office, Pall-Mall.

"And we will that all our faithful subjects bestir themselves in this cause.

(Signed,)

"MARY."

"And now," said Lady Mary, "what is become of our worthy uncle?"

"Sir Geoffrey has left us these three hours," said Frederic. And we have been holding a levee of all the young nobility of our realm, without his countenance and sanction. What will the world say! I shall figure in the papers with four asterisks, and the Duchess of will cut me. But to you I commit my defence. Good night to all."--And the company separated.

(Signed,)

PEREGRINE COURTENAY,

Secretary.

THE EDITOR.

Qu'il parle donc encore, qu'il parle comme il pourra, et qu'il me dise qui il est, d'où il vient, et d'où il a apporté les étranges curiosités qu'il m'a offertes ! VATHEK.

"And so, Mr. Frederic, you are going to set up a periodical?" "It is even so, Doctor,-infinitely true."

"Very meritorious, vastly amusing:-pray, did you ever set up any thing before?"

"I set up a tandem last March, Doctor!"

"Yes, and lodged me in a ditch last April. Look to it, Frederic, for the Whip and the Editor incur alike the peril of an overturn and the danger of ditch water."

“And, by the manes of my grandmother's, so they do. I have not been a month in my seat, and the reins are giving way, the wheels playing the devil's tattoo over the stones, and the leader curvetting right and left as if he had no idea of a straight line. Every post I pass threatens death and demolition; every pedestrian I meet looks knowingly at the cattle, and whispers to his companion, 'go it, Sir,-he's in for a smash!' Bah! let me pull up for a second; and reduce matters to order."

Thus then:

Gentlemen Contributors, to drop all metaphor, and to drop all ceremony, it is necessary that I should make a few remarks on the line of conduct you are severally and collectively pursuing.

Here I have before me a pile of papers of sufficient depth and of sufficient obscurity to pose the decypherer of De Republica: quartos of quiet prose, folios of gentlemanly rhyme. What in the name of merriment do you take me for? Bacon or Confucius, Duns Scotus or Doctor Bentley?

What in the name of virtû, do you mean, Shafto, by sending me a critique of twenty pages upon the exhibition at Somerset House, when you know exceedingly well that a considerable expenditure of time, and a considerable acquisition of flash terms, have not yet enabled you to distinguish a Lawrence from a Vandyke or a Wilkie from a Jan Stein? Sir, you may take me at the most unpicturesque moment of my life,-take me from the Crown and Anchor, from the Fives Court, from Tattersall's, and I will back myself at five to one to write a better critique at six pages an hour.

What in the name of common sense do you mean, Pendragon, by sending me a learned treatise, not composed without much labour, not perused without more, and not comprehended with

any labour whatever, for the purpose of overthrowing the existence of Trismegistus, and showing Prince Hohenloe to be a true prophet?-when you know exceeding well, that an university drilling has hardly communicated to you the important basis of all reasoning, that two and two make four; and has altogether failed in convincing you of the no less desirable theorem, that the doctrines of the Treasury Bench are infallible.-Why, my dear Pendragon, you may arrest me at the most unargumentative period of my life,-arrest me at Almack's in the last quadrille, arrest me at the Opera, (Vestris and the Donna del Lago)— arrest me at 's when I win my next thousand, or at Doncaster when the horse I back walks over,—and, at any of these junctures, reason me dumb if I do not knock off a more sober, a more just, a more philosophical essay, in the time you would take to mend your pen.

And, finally, what in the name of the muses do you mean, Willoughby, by sending me two portfolios and one small album crammed to the very margin with sonnets and love verses. If this be the ballast our vessel needs, c'en est fait-I quit the helm! If I were to sanction with my name and authority such an outrageous import of tenderness and tears, where could I find a friend? Who would listen to my judgment in the side-box? Who would look at my Bucephalus in the Ring? Who would laugh at my jokes at Brookes's? Why, my dear Willoughby, I never saw but two beautiful faces in my life and I fell in love with neither of them; yet, by the spirit of Leander the Waterman, you may call me at the most unpoetical moment that ever an unpoetical man passed through,-you may call me from the paying of a ceremonious visit, or from the paying of a tailor's bill; from the lecture room of Dr. Gall, or from the gallery of the House of Commons, and I will wager Moore to Bowles, or the Chancellor to a filbert, that I beat you at love-rhyming, in the judgment of any bright-eyed Dulcinea from fifteen to twenty and from London to the Land's-end!

Are these the topics to which my attention is now to be devoted? Venison and Champagne, Dice and Collinet, am I to apostatize from you for ever, that I may dabble with manuscripts and proof sheets, that I may be abused by the Critics and adored by the Blues, that I may be cut by the Bloods in Bond Street, and patronized by the Devils in Pall Mall. Be it so!

But I have not done with my distresses.-Gentlemen Contributors, to you I am indebted for restless days and sleepless nights;-my acquaintance with you has afforded a very rapid introduction to care and to calomel. Ere I engaged in this perilous vocation my slumbers were light, and my digestion was easy; but you have filled my brain with the horrors of promises unperformed, and of talents misapplied. You, Aymer, were

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