watch him. This man, on entering, found him leaning forward upon the table, weeping piteously.

Next day one of his fits of despondency seized him, nor did he recover his former cheerfulness while I remained at the asylum. He hardly ever spoke to me, appearing much chagrined and embarrassed in my company, as a person does in that of any one before whom he has committed himself unwarily.

For my part I looked upon him now with far different thoughts from what I had entertained before this singular disclosure. The narrative had riveted my attention whilst he delivered it, by its originality, its interest, and the absolute belief he appeared to feel in every incident. I was struck with the linking together of accurate reasoning, extravagance, and preposterous absurdity it evinced-at the many instances it. displayed of a wildly exuberant and lawless fancy, breaking up and confounding the more sober faculties, till a sort of chaotic whole was produced, in which fantastic conception, beauty and vigour of description, richness and power of creative imagination, scientific acquirement and research, were all blended together in an incongruous tissue of delirium. I could not help thinking, was not this a mind, if properly regulated, and placed in suitable circumstances, to have conducted the most laborious investigations with adequate ability and success, and to have communicated the result, in a manner equal to the importance of the subject,—a mind whose graces would have been as ornamental to society as its labours would have been useful. And now misfortune, haply mismanagement, had rendered it a melancholy though by no means ridiculous satire upon the class of intellects to which it belonged.

Shortly after quitting the asylum I went to travel, and did not return. for eighteen months. The friend whose place I had thus temporarily filled was one of the first I sought on my arrival in England, and one of my earliest inquiries was with regard to what had become of my former patient, the Pole.

His fate I learned, but have some hesitation in narrating it here, unwilling to add to the scenes, in these papers, that seem to entail upon their author the stigma of a dealer in the horrible and awful-a panderer to the inflamed taste that at present seems so much to gloat upon pictures of overdrawn and unnatural romance. As, however, the curiosity of the reader might be disappointed without it, I can only proceed in the way that appears to me to partake least of the character alluded to.

Not long after my departure, Maryanski was removed by his relations, with the view of being placed under the care of a practitioner in France. Hereafter he disappeared from the notice of my friend for about three or four months, till he was vividly brought before it by the following circumstances:

One night a young lady, an actress, was travelling by one of the coaches that run between London and Exeter; she was the only passenger. The night was cold, wet, windless, and dark, and no living thing could be seen from the vehicle, the lanterns of which were the sole lights that cheered the dreary road. The only noises audible, besides the mournful howling bark of some distant watchdog, were the rattle of heavy drops on the roof, the hurried plashing of the horses' feet, and the occasional sounds of encouragement addressed to the

animals by the coachman and guard, anxious to get forward to where they knew that a good fire and comfortable meal awaited them.

The passenger endeavoured to while away the tedium of her midnight journey, by watching through the rain-dimmed glass the stunted trees, and cold-looking wet hedges, as, for a moment illumined by the passing glare of the lamps, they seemed to fit away ghostlike to the

rear.

On a sudden, as the vehicle was crossing one of the gloomy and extensive plains that abound on that line of road, it was hailed from the wayside by a person who stood alone, enveloped in a voluminous cloak, and drenched with wet. The coachman halted, and the stranger craving a passage to the next town, he opened the door for his entrance.

The lady remarked, as he passed under the light, something peculiar and unusual about his aspect, something by which she was led to believe him one of her own profession, and most likely travelling with similar views to hers. She was consequently induced to notice him with some interest.

As the vehicle drove on, he seated himself before her, with his back to the horses, and commenced a conversation, which-she being a woman of considerable talent-was kept up for some time with much spirit. The extraordinary manners and language of the stranger afforded her not a little entertainment at first, as she believed their peculiarities to be acted for the time, and she listened to him with great attention.

At length his topics and words became so strange and wild, that she could not follow them, and ceased to understand him. A feeling of wonder, doubt, and vague alarm seized her, and she sat trembling, and fervently wishing for the termination of the stage. Suddenly she heard a slight clicking sound, as of a small spring, and her eye could catch a dim, metallic gleaming through the darkness of the vehicle-a moment, and the head of her fellow-traveller fell heavily forward upon her lap, and her hands were bathed with some scalding fluid. She screamed aloud-the horses were suddenly drawn up the guard pulled open the door, and the light from the lantern showed him the lady, white as a sheet, gasping with terror, with the male passenger prone upon her knees, his head turned to one side, and air gurgling from a deep wound in his neck. The fluid that bathed her hands and dress was blood. In the bottom of the carriage was a pocket-case of surgical instruments, and a slender bright bistoury, falling out as the door was opened, tinkled among the stones of the roadway.

I shall go no further with the scene.

This traveller turned out to be the young Pole, my former patient. In a pocket of the instrument-case, was found a note, addressed Alexis Maryanski, of such a street, London-his father. It was in German, and merely stated, that finding his present body unsuited to him, he had made arrangements to divest himself of it, and take another.

SONG OF THE WINTER TREE.

BY ELIZA COOK.

WHAT a happy life was mine when the sunbeams used to twine
Like golden threads about my summer suit;

When my warp and woof of green let enough of light between,
Just to dry the dew that lingered at my root.

What troops of friends I had when my form was richly clad,
And I was fair 'mid fairest things of earth!

Good company came round, and I heard no rougher sound
Than Childhood's laugh in bold and leaping mirth.
The old man sat him down to note my emerald crown,
And rest beneath my branches thick and bright;
The squirrel on my spray kept swinging all the day,
And the song birds chattered to me through the night.
The dreaming poet laid his soft harp in my shade,
And sung my beauty, chorussed by the bee;
The village maiden came to read her own dear name,
Carved on my bark, and bless the broad green tree.

The merry music breathed, while the bounding dancers wreathed
In mazy windings round my giant stem;

And the joyous words they poured, as they trod the chequered sward,

Told the green tree was a worshipped thing by them.

Oh, what troops of friends I had, to make my strong heart glad,
What kind ones answered to my rustling call!

I was hailed with smiling praise, in the glowing summer days,
And the beautiful green tree was loved by all.

But the bleak wind hath swept by, and the gray cloud dimmed the sky,

My latest leaf, has left my inmost bough;

I creak in grating tones, like the skeleton's bleached bones,

And not a footstep seeks the old tree now.

I stand at morning's dawn, the cheerless and forlorn ;

The sunset comes and finds me still alone;

The mates who shared my bloom have left me in my gloom;
Birds, poet, dancers, children-all are gone.

The hearts that turned this way when I stood in fine array,
Forsake me now as though I ceased to be;

I win no painter's gaze, I hear no minstrel's lays,
The very nest falls from the leafless tree.

But the kind and merry train will be sure to come again,
With love and smiles as ready as of yore,

I must only wait to wear my robe so rich and fair,
And they will throng as they have thronged before.

Oh, ye who dwell in pride with parasites beside,
Only lose your summer green leaves and ye'll see

That the courtly friends will change into things all cold and strange,
And forget ye as they do the winter tree.

A GENTLEMAN MISSING.

66
BY THE AUTHOR OF PETER PRIGGINS,"

In your zeal for the acquirement of accomplishments, do not lose sight of the solid and useful branches of education; above all things do not neglect your figures. -EDGEWORTH on Education.

СНАР. І.

MR. GABRIEL FLAME was a nobody, as far as family honours were concerned. His father was a very respectable oil and colourman, and had been in office; he had, in fact, been churchwarden, overseer, and high constable; the duties of which honourable but troublesome appointments he had discharged to his own satisfaction. He would often allude to his exertions in the cause of the parish of Bloomsbury, over his cups, in language which his hearers thought highly appropriate, although not strictly grammatical.

As a churchwarden, he had never neglected the interests of his own church or his own comforts. When he had whitewashed, painted, and decorated the building under his charge, he did not forget to have the parish pew so comfortably stuffed, cushioned, and curtained, that he and his colleague could repose in it as comfortably as in their own easy chairs.

As an overseer, he was liberal in the dispensation of the parish money, and as he was not of an inquisitive nature, he was a great favourite with the undeserving poor.

As a high-constable, he was in repute with the magistrates, because he gave them little or no trouble; in fact, he never interfered in any matters, unless he was compelled to do so by some troublesome fellow or another, and then he did it very reluctantly. His soul was in his trade and in his only child, Gabriel, whom, like a fond parent, he thought a glorious exception to the common herd of children-an opinion in which he was corroborated by his faithful spouse.

Was it probable or possible that he should think of bringing up "the handsomest and most genteelest young man in Bloomsbury" to his own profession? Could he allow the taper fingers of his boy to be soiled with lamp-black, white-lead, red ochre, and brown umber? Could he permit him to go forth to some evening party, redolent of boiled linseed oil or turps? No. He was what is called well to do in the world, and he resolved to make his son a gentleman and a scholar, so he sent him to a school at Hammersmith at 221. per annum, washing included. He had heard of the wise men of the East, but he preferred the accomplished gentlemen of the West, and thought Hammersmith was the far west of gentility and good breeding.

Old Flame was not much out in his reckoning, for Gabriel left school at the age of nineteen, a most accomplished-coxcomb. He was as ignorant as a linendraper's shop-boy, and about as well dressed. His father, however, was delighted with him.

"There, sir," he would exclaim, as he was serving a customer, and

saw his son pass the shop-window, "see that ere young man? My son-my son, sir-six feet of the elegantest bit of humanity in Bloomsbury. Natur formed the material sich as you see it; edication has primed him, and laid on the two first coats; it only remains for high life to give him the finishing touch, and a prettier bit of work was never turned out of hand. His manners and learning stand out so clearly that you'd fancy they'd been laid on with a pound brush."

His mother talked of nothing else but Gabriel to her maid-of-allwork, and to her neighbours. She wound up the account of his virtues and graces by advising the "tip-top ladies to mind what they were about, or they would lose their hearts before they could say Jack Robinson, if they fell in company with her son."

As these remarks, and others of the same tendency, were made as freely in Gabriel's presence as they were in his absence, he thought his parents were possessed of an inordinate share of good sense and discrimination, and resolved not to disappoint their views and expectations. He would gain admittance into high life, and allow the tip-top ladies an opportunity of losing their hearts by gazing on his face and figure. As a preliminary step to his entrance into the walks of high life, Gabriel frequented the saloons of the theatres, and spent his nights in musical taverns, where he learnt to smoke cigars, sing amorous and sentimental songs, give toasts and sentiments, and absorb unlimited quantities of the most fashionable mixtures. He soon got acquainted with the public singers and recitators who "obliged the company" nightly, and as he had plenty of money, and treated them very freely, they condescended to nod to him familiarly and cultivate his acquaintance; they even allowed him to command any particular song or recitation he pleased without pleading a shocking cold, or incipient sore throat.

His next step was to procure an introduction to the gentlemen who knock one another about, and sometimes die in the ring, for the amusement of other people and their own aggrandizement. This he easily effected, by allowing his pockets to be picked at the Fives' Court, and finding out the public-houses kept by the professors of pugilism, and by taking a pound's worth of tickets for their respective benefits.

These two advances in the path of high life gave him access to a third, namely, that occupied by "the knowing set," men who have the family pedigree of every race-horse at their fingers' ends, and can "give the office" to any body who wishes to lay or hedge a bet. A few days at the Corner," and a judicious display of a red book and a lead pencil, made him acquainted with some of the most conspicuous legs, and as he only risked some forty or fifty pounds on the Derby and St. Leger to make their acquaintance, he thought it was very cheap at the money. He had no trouble in getting into the minor hells, for the same parties were kind enough to introduce him, and to teach him how to play at roulette, rouge-et-noir, and blind hookey. As every one of them told him he played like a gentleman, Gabriel was satisfied that he had fulfilled his parent's wishes in one respect.

To effect the other-an introduction to the tip-top ladies to whom his mother so frequently alluded-he joined a dancing society-a sort of capering club, that had been established by a celebrated master in the art of "the light fantastic," which met twice a week at a large room