and taw the hordayshis villing lim from lim in the terrible strenth of my despare! . . . Let me drop a cutting over the memries of that night. When my boddy-suvnt came with my ot water in the mawning, the livid copse in the charnill was not payler than the gashly De la Pluche!
"'Give me the Share-list, Mandeville,' I micanickly igsclaimed. I had not perused it for the past 3 days, my etention being engayged elseware. Hevns & huth!--what was it I red there? What was it that made me spring outabed as if sumbady had given me cold pig?--I red Rewin in that Share-list--the Pannick was in full hoparation!
*****
"Shall I describe that kitastrafy with which hall Hengland is familliar? My & rifewses to cronnicle the misfortns which lassarated my bleeding art in Hoctober last. On the fust of Hawgust where was I? Director of twenty-three Companies; older of scrip hall at a primmium, and worth at least a quarter of a millium. On Lord Mare's day my Saint Helenas quotid at 14 pm, were down at 1/2 discount; my Central Ichaboes at 3/8 discount; my Table Mounting & Hottentot Grand Trunk, no where; my Bathershins and Derrynane Beg, of which I'd bought 2000 for the account at 17 primmium, down to nix; my Juan Fernandez, my Great Central Oregons, prostrit. There was a momint when I thought I shouldn't be alive to write my own tail!"
(Here follow in Mr. Plush's MS. about twenty-four pages of railroad calculations, which we pretermit.)
"Those beests, Pump & Aldgate, once so cringing and umble, wrote me a threatnen letter because I overdrew my account three-and-sixpence: woodn't advance me five thousand on 25,000 worth of scrip; kep me waiting 2 hours when I asked to see the house; and then sent out Spout, the jewnior partner, saying they wouldn't discount my paper, and implawed me to clothes my account. I did: I paid the three-and-six balliance, and never sor 'em mor.
"The market fell daily. The Rewin grew wusser and wusser. Hagnies, Hagnies! it wasn't in the city aloan my misfortns came upon me. They beerded me in my own ome. The biddle who kips watch at the Halbany wodn keep misfortn out of my chambers; and Mrs. Twiddler, of Pall Mall, and Mr. Hunx, of Long Acre, put egsicution into my apartmince, and swep off every stick of my furniture. 'Wardrobe & furniture of a man of fashion.' What an adwertisement George Robins DID make of it; and what a crowd was collected to laff at the prospick of my ruing! My chice plait; my seller of wine; my picturs--that of myself included (it was Maryhann, bless her! that bought it, unbeknown to me); all--all went to the ammer. That brootle Fitzwarren, my ex-vally, womb I met, fimilliarly slapt me on the sholder, and said, 'Jeames, my boy, you'd best go into suvvis aginn.'
"I DID go into suvvis--the wust of all suvvices--I went into the Queen's Bench Prison, and lay there a misrabble captif for 6 mortial weeks. Misrabble shall I say? no, not misrabble altogether; there was sunlike in the dunjing of the pore prisner. I had visitors. A cart used to drive hup to the prizn gates of Saturdays; a washywoman's cart, with a fat old lady in it, and a young one. Who was that young one? Every one who has an art can gess, it was my blue-eyed blushing hangel of a Mary Hann! 'Shall we take him out in the linnen-basket, grandmamma?' Mary Hann said. Bless her, she'd already learned to say grandmamma quite natral: but I didn't go out that way; I went out by the door a whitewashed man. Ho, what a feast there was at Healing the day I came out! I'd thirteen shillings left when I'd bought the gold ring. I wasn't prowd. I turned the mangle for three weeks; and then Uncle Bill said, 'Well, there IS some good in the feller;' and it was agreed that we should marry."
The Plush manuscript finishes here: it is many weeks since we saw the accomplished writer, and we have only just learned his fate. We are happy to state that it is a comfortable and almost a prosperous one.
The Honorable and Right Reverend Lionel Thistlewood, Lord Bishop of Bullocksmithy, was mentioned as the uncle of Lady Angelina Silvertop. Her elopement with her cousin caused deep emotion to the venerable prelate: he returned to the palace at Bullocksmithy, of which he had been for thirty years the episcopal ornament, and where he married three wives, who lie buried in his Cathedral Church of St. Boniface, Bullocksmithy.
The admirable man has rejoined those whom he loved. As he was preparing a charge to his clergy in his study after dinner, the Lord Bishop fell suddenly down in a fit of apoplexy; his butler, bringing in his accustomed dish of devilled kidneys for supper, discovered the venerable form extended on the Turkey carpet with a glass of Madeira in his hand; but life was extinct: and surgical aid was therefore not particularly useful.
All the late prelate's wives had fortunes, which the admirable man increased by thrift, the judicious sale of leases which fell in during his episcopacy, &c. He left three hundred thousand pounds--divided between his nephew and niece--not a greater sum than has been left by several deceased Irish prelates.
What Lord Southdown has done with his share we are not called upon to state. He has composed an epitaph to the Martyr of Bullocksmithy, which does him infinite credit. But we are happy to state that Lady Angelina Silvertop presented five hundred pounds to her faithful and affectionate servant, Mary Ann Hoggins, on her marriage with Mr. James Plush, to whom her Ladyship also made a handsome present--namely, the lease, good-will, and fixtures of the "Wheel of Fortune" public-house, near Shepherd's Market, May Fair: a house greatly frequented by all the nobility's footmen, doing a genteel stroke of business in the neighborhood, and where, as we have heard, the "Butlers' Club" is held.
Here Mr. Plush lives happy in a blooming and interesting wife: reconciled to a middle sphere of life, as he was to a humbler and a higher one before. He has shaved off his whiskers, and accommodates himself to an apron with perfect good humor. A gentleman connected with this establishment dined at the "Wheel of Fortune" the other day, and collected the above particulars. Mr. Plush blushed rather, as he brought in the first dish, and told his story very modestly over a pint of excellent port. He had only one thing in life to complain of, he said--that a witless version of his adventures had been produced at the Princess's theatre, "without with your leaf or by your leaf," as he expressed it. "Has for the rest," the worthy fellow said, "I'm appy--praps betwixt you and me I'm in my proper spear. I enjy my glass of beer or port (with your elth & my suvvice to you, sir,) quite as much as my clarrit in my prawsprus days. I've a good busniss, which is likely to be better. If a man can't be appy with such a wife as my Mary Hann, he's a beest: and when a christening takes place in our famly, will you give my complments to MR. PUNCH, and ask him to be godfather."
LETTERS OF JEAMES.
JEAMES ON TIME BARGINGS.
"Peraps at this present momink of Railway Hagetation and unsafety the follying little istory of a young friend of mine may hact as an olesome warning to hother week and hirresolute young gents.
"Young Frederick Timmins was the horphan son of a respectable cludgyman in the West of Hengland. Hadopted by his uncle, Colonel T----, of the Hoss-Mareens, and regardless of expence, this young man was sent to Heaton Collidge, and subsiquintly to Hoxford, where he was very nearly being Senior Rangler. He came to London to study for the lor. His prospix was bright indead; and he lived in a secknd flore in Jerming Street, having a ginteal inkum of two hundred lbs. per hannum.
"With this andsum enuity it may be supposed that Frederick wanted for nothink. Nor did he. He was a moral and well-educated young man, who took care of his close; pollisht his hone tea-party boots; cleaned his kidd-gloves with injer rubber; and, when not invited to dine out, took his meals reglar at the Hoxford and Cambridge Club--where (unless somebody treated him) he was never known to igseed his alf-pint of Marsally Wine.
"Merrits and vuttues such as his coodnt long pass unperseavd in the world. Admitted to the most fashnabble parties, it wasn't long befor sevral of the young ladies viewed him with a favorable i; one, ixpecially, the lovely Miss Hemily Mulligatawney, daughter of the Heast-Injar Derector of that name. As she was the richest gal of all the season, of corse Frederick fell in love with her. His haspirations were on the pint of being crowndid with success; and it was agreed that as soon as he was called to the bar, when he would sutnly be apinted a Judge, or a revising barrister, or Lord Chanslor, he should lead her to the halter.
"What life could be more desirable than Frederick's? He gave up his mornings to perfeshnl studdy, under Mr. Bluebag,