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treat, reason is worse than folly—it is crime.—This fortune-teller, who lived in a court near my father's house-(I love to speak of the place, as I do to pass through it, to this day, though I have never any business there)—this fortune-teller had a beautiful daughter;-stately as an Indian palm-tree-graceful as the branches of a wind-swept willowwith an oval Greek face-eyes like the morning- -oh! I have often thought since, if I had but devoted a tithe of the time to the mother that I did to the daughter, I might have been happy! she would have gifted me with faith, perhaps; and faith is as needful in love as it is in animal magnetism; there is no good to be done or suffered in either without it. Perhaps, too, she would have proved to me that the stars had destined me for her daughter; which, in truth, I now begin to think they did, for I have never since penetrated so near to the real El Dorado. I might then be said to inhabit that narrow slip of " debateable ground" which surrounds the domains of Love on every side, and separates it from the Great Desert which forms the remainder of the intellectual world.

The fortune-teller's daughter was several years older than I was. He who is really capable of feeling the passion of love, is sure to begin by loving a woman older than himself. Incipient lovers may write this down in their commonplace-books as an axiom. All my readers, except these latter, (and I can reckon on but few of them) would grow impatient if I were to detail the various stratagems I put in practice, to attract the attention and gain the acquaintance of the beautiful Nancy L. Suffice it that I waited and waited, and watched and watched, night after night, and week after week, of one of those long dreary winters that we used to have then, only to get a sight of her at the window, which looked up an angle the court made just at the point where her mother's house was situated— -or to pronounce her name-" Nancy!" as she flitted by me on some errand. She soon knew me for what I was; for when did a woman not know the meaning written in a lover's look? And she never passed me without a smile of recognition; for when did a woman frown on a lover of fifteen? But she did pass me; for I had never hitherto mustered up courage enough to speak to her. At last, one bitter cold January evening,―(I think we never have such Januaries now-even the seasons themselves have changed-or, is it that they, and every thing else, do but seem to change; while it is we ourselves who change, as years bring on the inevitable yoke ?")—one bitter January evening, as she was passing by me rather more deliberately than usual, and, as I thought, with even a more than usually graceful and gracious smile upon her fine imaginative countenance,-I took hold of her arm gently, and she stopped!-I trembled, smiled, and said nothing; but slowly transferred my hold from her arm to her hand-her bare hand, -for she never wore gloves, except on Sundays. The magic influence of that touch thrills through me as I write, and awakens my torpid sensibilities into life-" even now, after long seeming dead." the mother could have conjured with only half the power that the daughter did, she would not have been taken to Union-hall, as a cheat and impostor-as I remember she was shortly after the time of which I am now speaking! Her hand (Nancy's) was as hard as horn, --for she did all the work of their little household-and as cold as

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ice; but its touch turned my blood into liquid flame, and dispersed to the winds, that came whistling by us, all the eloquence I had for months past been meditating for this long-sought occasion: I could not utter a word.--" Well," she said,--still smilingly, and without the slightest appearance of anger or confusion,-" Well-what do you want with me?"In reply, I could only ask her "where she was going?" This was an unlucky question; for it reminded her of what she seemed to have forgotten; and, with another smile, she took her hand away from me, and was gone in a moment, into a shop close by. I of course waited till she returned; and, the spell being now broken, I spoke to her again, asking her to "come and take a walk with me." She smiled, shook her head, and again whisked away, leaving me fixed to the spot, in a trance of mingled surprise and happiness. I had spoken to her! touched her! heard the sound of her voice addressed in kindness to me! and the world, for any thing I cared to the contrary, might now be at an end; for, steeped as I was in the very fulness of waking bliss, if I did not think, I at least felt, that " if it were now to die, 'twere now to be most happy."-Why was it not so? I was innocent then; and how can innocence be more richly and appropriately blessed than to be permitted to die in the lap of delight?-Even the " gentle" reader, unless he has been in love at the age of fifteen, can have no notion of the fulness, the absolute fruition, of deep and quiet delight, which this interview brought me. It seemed that I had nothing more to do with either hope or fear-that I was beyond the reach of harm or accident-in short, that the end and object of my existence was accomplished: and, without waiting or watching at the window any longer, I went straight home, and slept a whole long night of dreamless sleep,-which I had not done before for many months.

Lovers of five-and-twenty, of both sexes, will smile at the limited nature of my hopes and wishes; and the good-natured among them will think, that, if I was so easily to be made happy, it was a pity I should be miserable. They are right: it was a pity. So thought the kind-hearted and good-natured Nancy L; and she treated me accordingly. It is thus that women bring into play their natural dispositions to be the creators of nothing but delight. To love and be beloved is at once the duty, the business, and the pleasure of their lives; but an intuitive sense of what it is fitting they should be, and should appear to be, under any given circumstances, teaches them that, in the present state of society, they must, to such of their lovers as are arrived at " years of discretion," be coy and cruel: but, when they are so, it is "only to be kind." Even while the stream of their affection is thus artificially dammed up at one of its natural outlets, it eagerly seeks for another; and accordingly, you will see a woman— who would die rather than bestow even a smile on a man-lover of fiveand-twenty-lavishing on a boy of fifteen, whose brain and blood are consuming themselves away with passion for her, "o dolci baci, o cosa altra più cara." This is as it should be. When the "Bella Età del oro" shall return, this may be safely changed; but, till then, women know what is best for themselves, and for us too.

But my story is standing still again. It lingers round this period as the bee does round its favourite flower, when it is far from home, and feels that the rain-clouds are gathering over-head.

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yes;"

When, at parting from me on the above night, Nancy shook her head in reply to my question, whether she would " come and take a walk with me?" I had the sense to know that she meant 66 and I waited as patiently for the coming of the next night, as the female dove waits for the unclosing of her "golden couplets;" for, like her, I knew instinctively that the blessed moment would come, and when it would come. And it did come. We met the next night, and walked together towards one of the bridges (if I were to say which of then, we might be getting too near home); —she, all the way, inquiring what it was I wanted with her; and I, all the way, feeling, but not knowing how to say, that, now I was with her, I had not a want in the world. I remember, as if it were but yesterday, that, when we came to the other side of the bridge, we could no longer walk along quietly, my arm linked in her's ;-(for, as I was " only a boy," she permitted this) but that, as if by a mutual and simultaneous impulse, we set off-(like two long-confined greyhounds when they feel their feet once more on the turf)-scampering along the road in the rich moonlight, hand in hand. I remember the very ringing sounds that my feet made, as I wilfully stamped them on the frosty road,-as the young lambs in spring stamp their little feet on the ground, from the very excess of inward joy. I remember, too, that her feet made no sound at all. Best of all I remember, that, when we could run no farther for want of breath, we stopped short to laugh out aloud; and that then I asked her if her heart did not beat very hard; and that I longed, but did not dare, to ask her if I might feel whether or not it beat as hard as mine did!- -Does the reader exclaim, that all this is "silly sooth,

And dallies with the innocence of love?" Not if he is, or ever has been, a lover. And it is for the benefit of such alone that these Confessions are made. I am well content that, to all others, they should be "caviare;" as all that they can have to confess would be to me.

The

I am afraid the reader will be more surprised than amused, at hearing how this, my first " affair of the heart," ended. In truth, it ended as mine always have done; and as I fear, in spite of dear-bought experience, they always will do:-namely, just where it ought to have begun. There is an ancient axiom, which says, that nothing can come of nothing-" Ex nihilo nihil fit." I would fain match this with a modern one, not so generally applicable perhaps; but at least equally true, in particular cases: viz. that nothing can come of any thing. ancient axiom is, in fact, far from being so true generally, as the modern one is in the particular cases to which this latter applies at all. With relation to many persons and things, it is evident that much may come of "nothing;" and in regard to that other class of persons to whom I refer, it is equally clear, that nothing can come even of much. Their whole being is made up of beginnings; never ending, still beginning," they begin and begin, till at last they end exactly where they began-beginning to live when they are called upon to die. And thus, alas! it is with me, and with these several " stories of my love." I am loth to exhibit them in their present form; and would willingly have thrown them into the shape of fictitious narratives-thus avoiding the egotism which necessarily besets them, and at the same time giving my

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self an opportunity of adding and embellishing, in the approved modern taste. But this would not be. Even Mr. Coleridge himself, who can make any thing out of nothing, and nothing out of any thing, might in vain have attempted to work up these " phantoms of the brain," (for facts as they are, in common language, they are, in fact, nothing less)— into regular tales; for they have neither middles nor ends-they have only beginnings. In relating them, I have no occasion to attend to the giant's advice in Rabelais, to " commencer au commencement;" for I can neither begin nor finish any where else. If I were ever so disposed to plunge" in medias res," it may not so be.-There will be, at all events, one advantage attending this; particularly to those who may peruse my Confessions merely as a matter of curiosity. If they should once find their curiosity excited, they may confidently reckon upon its always remaining so,-for it will never be satisfied. The misery of arriving at the last page of a modern romance, usually more than counterbalances the pleasure which has been experienced during the perusal of it; for every character in it, about whom we have felt any interest, has by this time become either married or buried, and we care no more about them. But the reader need not apprehend any thing of this kind happening during the several chapters of this my Romance of Real Life;-not even in the last. And, as I shall certainly not leave off loving till one or other of these events befals me, I shall, by the same rule, not leave off having Confessions to make, and making them.

I shall abruptly close this paper here; otherwise it will be running to an unreasonable length. And I do so the rather, because I would, for once, lay down my pen at a point where I shall not tremble to take it up again. In spite of what I have said at the beginning of this paper, the "ricordarsi del tempo felice" has not been absolutely without its delight, though it has been done" nella miseria ;" and I receive this as a good augury. The truth is, that if a gleam of sunshine breaks through surrounding clouds but for a single moment, during that moment it will perform its office-it will cheer, and warm, and enlighten. The clouds may perhaps look blacker after it is gone; but there is no denying or forgetting that it has been there. Z.

TO A LADY PROFESSING HER BELIEF IN ASTROLOGY.

'Tis eve, and the stars that illumine the night

Diffuse a soft lustre around:

You tell me, dear maid, in those bodies of light

The secrets of fate may be found;

If so, I believe in your bright orbs of blue
Futurity equally lies:

So for once I will e'en turn astrologer too,

And study my doom in your eyes.

No science is surely so pleasing as this,
But yet 'tis obscure and perplext,

One moment I read in it rapture and bliss,

And falsehood and sorrow the next:

You smile-now my stars a bright aspect assume,

I pant for my charmer's decree;

Then come, dear astrologer, tell me my doom,
And I'll give you my heart for a fee!

M. A.

MEMOIRS OF GEORGE II. BY LORD WALPOLE.

Ir is only a few months since the attention of the public was called to the Memoirs, by Lord Waldegrave, of the Reign of George the Second. Scanty, and, in some measure, bald as they were, they nevertheless excited a strong degree of interest, on account of the perfect integrity, and simplicity of character, which distinguished their illustrious author; and the consideration that he had not only been an eye-witness, but also an actor in all the scenes which he has described. The same period is now laid open, the same characters exhibited, the same cabals penetrated, by a writer of very different disposition and pursuits; but who had the same advantage of being at once spectator and actor in the busy drama which he delineates; and who, if he had not Lord Waldegrave's habitual integrity of judgment, was at least gifted with that native quickness of discernment which enabled him to trace effects, even though he mistook the cause; and with that liveliness of imagination which prevents his mistakes from being mischievous, by at once revealing the impressions under which he conceived them. We allude to the "Memoirs of the last ten years of the reign of George the Second," just now given to the world, with the name of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford, for their author; decked out in all the elegance of type and decoration which might be looked for from the private press of Strawberry-hill itself, and under circumstances which preclude the most sceptical from entertaining doubts as to their authenticity.

The period of which they particularly treat is, in itself, at this distance of time, but little interesting; being destitute of great events, or any extraordinary features, that may be supposed to have extended their influence to the present day. The petty cabals called forth by the forming of an establishment for the Prince of Wales, and, after his death, for his son George, are made, for want of more important matter of dispute, of as much consequence as if they were national feuds, endangering the safety of the state, instead of the salaries of a few domestics, or the nominal dignity of higher officers of the household. Nevertheless, it is always instructive to see how easily the passions of mankind are brought into play, by trifles almost as much as by matters of importance: and even erroneous opinions have their uses, as well as those which are just; if the reader be enabled to see in what respect their erroneousness consists, and to unravel the circumstances which have led to the assumption of them. On all these accounts Lord Orford's work is, to a certain degree, interesting and valuable. It is one of the many, from which the judicious historian may glean occasionally information of importance, and oftener still, the lighter personal anecdotes which relieve the dry details of state negotiations, like flowers unexpectedly springing on a barren heath.

The picture of the royal family, as delineated by the spirited pencil of this author, so famous for conveying a likeness by almost a stroke, contains not one amiable portrait. The King acknowledged that he never liked his children when they were young; though the period of infancy is generally fraught with attractions, even to an uninterested observer of its graces;-and as his family grew up, the feuds between him and his eldest son early initiated them all into the petty arts of

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