fits. I felt inclined to fall upon my knees, and to implore of him to spare me; if he would only leave the novel with me, I would promise to look at it and read it at my leisure; if he wanted praise, compliments, or encouragement, he should have them in any quantity; but, oh! to have three volumes of a novel-and in MSS. too -read aloud, it was too much. What had I done that he should persecute me thus?

"All these thoughts passed rapidly through my brain, only I never gave them utterance. One little moment of moral courage then would have saved me whole hours of physical suffering afterwards. But authors have no bowels!

"He began in a dull, dismal, sepulchral tone. It was something about a bright sunny morning in May, when two travellers on horseback were seen slowly descending a perilous ravine that skirted one of the smiling copses of fair Languedoc. There was a stream that kept dancing to its own murmuring music, a long conversation, a stranger, a storm, and I cannot recall how much more of the same stuff: the title even has fled from my recollection. I became sleepy, and saw everything through a mist; a fog seemed to have got into the room, and to have shrouded every object. I tried to speak, but couldn't. A choking sensation strangled all my words. I could not articulate, excepting to lisp, every hundred pages, a Very good!' or to jerk out something like a large Capital! I felt myself gradually sinking; my vision-I mean my eyesight, not the spectre before menext failed me; my spectacles, let me rub them as I would, apparently were covered with thick cobwebs. I was rapidly going; I could not keep my eyes open. A giddiness seized me, and I fell back in my arm-chair powerless, helpless, senseless. I experienced a heavy pressure on my brain; I am sure I was mad-I felt exactly like a syncretic. I raved terribly; words fell from my lips which I never meant-rather the reverse; 'Beautiful!''Sublime!'Esthetic!' and other unmeaning exclamations escaped involuntarily from me. Occasionally I felt a strong inclination to jump up and run. At one time I could scarcely control an irrepressible desire to spring upon my enemy, and do him bodily violence. Once my fingers made a grasp at the little mountain of leaves which were lying, still unread, upon the groaning table; my object was to throw them into the fire, and so escape by a coup-de-main from the incubus which was pressing heavier and heavier each page upon me. But I had not the strength to do it; besides, where would have been the good? I was positive that my persecutor would only smile, and, pulling out of his pocket another copy, would quietly resume his lecture and his persecutions. Every author goes about doubly armed, in case one instrument should miss fire. There is no possible escape but deaf

ness.

"The fiend still continued. He did not seem tired in the least. His voice was as strong as at first. Occasionally, too, he laughed: this maddened me more than anything; it seemed as if he was adding insult to injury. It was the same heavy, pelting shower of words; Angelinas, De Montmorencys-lovely creatures-fairest angels-bandits-daggers-traps-moonshine, all passing in one rapid whirl before me. At one moment I was shot; the next I was married; then I was in a cave of robbers; then in a battle; after that in prison; next on horseback, leaping church steeples; then on

my death-bed; next buried alive; then dancing; after that I don't know what. Not a single incident of a three-volumed novel was spared me! I was even elected a member of the House of Commons, and made to feel a great pleasure in listening to long debates in the stupid hope of one day becoming prime minister. I was, however, saved that, by being pelted most opportunely at the Reform Bill. The number of languages, too, which I suddenly spoke was something awful. A frightful deal of French, a good quantity of Italian, a cruel lot of German, mixed up with no small allowance of Latin, Greek, Irish, Scotch, and Sanscrit,-every tongue came as glibly from my lips as if I had been a polyglot dictionary. My teeth fairly ache from it now.

"The hours flew, or rather, crawled, and all I can remember is, that at five o'clock I awoke from a feverish slumber. All my sins, all my little cheats and peccadilloes, all my robberies at school, my fibs at home, all the wrongs, and deceptions, and meannesses I had practised from my pinaforehood, during my brief reign of moustaches as a young man, up to my gray hairs as a married man, and down to my bald head as a widower, all of these galloped, shrieking, in one long, reproachful, straggling review before me. They looked terrible when all enlisted in the same black regiment. I bowed my head, and covered my eyes with shame. Still I could not help reflecting that, bad as they were, they scarcely justified the fearful retribution that was then being visited upon me. I recollect I wept. The tears were a heavenly relief; but misery grew out of my comfort, for the wretch before me actually believed I was affected by his melancholy story. He said to me quite sympathetically, I see, my dear sir, you are moved. We will pause a bit. But I am glad I was not mistaken in the effect of that poison scene; I cannot tell you how pleased I am you like it.'

"He did pause: but it was only to return to the attack with renewed force, with refreshed lungs. During the interval he had sucked two oranges. He had positively brought a bag of them with him. Can you imagine such premeditated cruelty? He even asked for a glass of wine. I gave it to him, I did not know what I was about. He drank several glasses, finishing the last with Here's luck to you;' and then he began reading again.

"Two volumes had been disposed of; some seven hundred pages of manuscript had been duly muttered,-I had not been spared a single word, The third volume was in his hand. He opened it, and, giving it a tap, which sounded like the crack of a pistol, said, with the most fiendish expression of conceit I ever saw, I think you will like this.' Here my senses abandoned me; nature was fairly overcome. I sank under the torture, which had lasted full five hours. All consciousness left me. How much longer my relentless persecutor continued reading, my deaf butler only can tell. When I awoke the following day at six P. M. I was in bed, with icebags on my temples, and my family collected round my pillow. Two physicians were in the room. The first words I heard on the recovery of my senses, were, Tell us candidly, doctor, do you think the case hopeless ?'

I have the strongest reason to believe," continued Mr. Dove, "that the monster never paused in his assault till he had got to the last page-to the very last word, FINIS, for the peels of no less than

eight empty oranges were found the next morning in the grate. This proves too plainly the natural thirst he must have for this species of cruelty; it is clearly inherent in him. I am glad to tell you, however, that the oranges are in the hands of the police."

Here Mr. Dove's fearful narrative concluded. He still remains, we are told, in a very precarious state, and but faint hopes are entertained of his recovery. The family and the Forresters are in pursuit of Mr. Dummy. The wretch has fled, it is reported, to Camden Town. He has taken his MS. with him. The whole neighbourhood is in the greatest state of consternation.

We have since been informed that it is not the first time by many that Mr. Dummy has committed a cowardly attack of this aggravated nature. His friends who have avoided him for years in consequence of his being such a notorious character, declare that he has been committing these assaults ever since he was connected with literature. It is rumoured of him that he once caused a verdict of "Not Guilty," to be returned in an undoubted case of Tipperary murder, by producing a manuscript tragedy, and insisting upon reading it to the jury, when they were locked up for the night. The next morning the twelve jurymen were all of one accord-the determination to be released as soon as possible from the attacks of a man who went about with loaded Epics in his pocket.

Cases like these call loudly for interference. It is time a fearful example should he made, in order to instil a proper degree of terror into all those young men who carry manuscripts on their persons wherever they go, for the purpose of entrapping some easy, goodnatured victim, when he is quite alone, and reading to him an epic poem, or a novel, or a copy of verses as long as Mr. Montgomery's "Woman," and about as interesting. This evil has reached now such an alarming height, that really it is scarcely safe to be left in the same room with a literary man, for fear he should commit, directly the door is closed, some such savage assault upon you, like the one to which poor Mr. Dove has fallen such a melancholy victim. An awful example is wanted, and Dummy is the man!

Wayside Pictures

THROUGH

FRANCE, BELGIUM, AND GERMANY.

I. FROM SHORE TO SHORE.

I SHALL take the reader at once on board a steamer lying under the shadow of the Southampton Pier. He has read too many books of travels, or travelled too much himself, not to feel that all preliminary matter is sheer waste of words.

It is not the first time I have stood upon this great sea-wall of Southampton, nor the second, nor-but we have nothing to do with such memories here, except as a sort of guarantee that we are not dealing solely with first impressions. Nor is our track to be always on the high-roads, or the direct course. We are to take all sorts of zig-zag paths, in and out of woods and glens, by mill-streams, villages, and hill-sides, losing ourselves in all manner of places, but keeping a final point of view, which we shall reach in the end; like a discursive gentleman returning home from a carouse, who betrays a vagrant desire to explore lamp-posts and dark entries, doorknockers, and the like, yet managing with inscrutable rectitude to get home at last.

Here then is the steam-boat into which we must descend. The tossing waters lapping its dull keel, give us a palpable flavour of the journey we are about to take. This is the first incident, this seething of the foam, and surly gurgle of broken waves, that turns expectation into action. Here the reality begins. The flutter of preparation is over, and the moment you tread the deck, and look back to the firm shore you have just left, you feel as if the breath of the strange distant land were already lifting your hair, and diffusing its elasticity through your limbs. A throb, you hardly know why, a little bustle down into the salon and up again, for no conceivable reason but the satisfaction of a fidget a glance at the passengers as they cluster into knots, full of chatter and excitement, dashed here and there with a little sallow English exclusiveness-a rapid survey of the faces that are crowded upon the platform above you-the engine shrieks-the paddles beat with tumultuous energy, and in a moment more the steamer sweeps into the Southampton Water.

Away past the Isle of Wight, whose "trim gardens" are fading into a heap of mist in the deepening twilight;-and now we are fairly "out at sea." The tourist is conscious of a slight sensation when his eye ranges for the first time over that expanse of ocean and sky, the land gone down behind the horizon, and not a trace of human life left upon the surface save specks of ships, scattered, and hardly distinguishable, in the distance. But the wonder soon ceases, so rapidly does the mind adapt itself to the phenomena of

nature.

It was raining when we started, a violent, tempestuous rain: and now we are in the midst of a storm. I never knew it otherwise in

this passage from Southampton to Havre. There are people who insist upon fancying that they have made this passage when the sea was "as smooth as a pond." Nautical delusions can no longer surprise or deceive the world. You will find scores of sailors who are ready to swear that they have exchanged signals with the Flying Dutchman.

It was early in the month of August. We supposed that we had anticipated the fury of the equinoctial gales; although I have a strong suspicion that out at sea they last the whole year round. How that may be I will not venture to speculate; but, certain it is, that I never but once before heard such a dialogue between the howling tempest and the hooting, whistling, screeching steam as smote my brain upon this occasion. This sort of elemental scena on a dark night, while the vessel is pitching like a cork on the surge, conjures up a phantasmagoria of terrible images in the bewildered imagination of a landsman. Fortunately, the good ship was a noble piece of architecture, with spacious cabins, plenty of sea-room, and wood-work as firm as if her timbers had their roots still buried in their native forests. But the consciousness of safety goes a short way to reconcile us to the groaning sounds that every moment send their dismal wail through the length and breadth of the boat. The crackling of the planks, as if they were cinnamon shavings - the long-drawn wheeze of the bulk-heads as the storm yells past - the shivering, and thumping, and scraping of the keel, as if the vessel were grating against rocks, or dragging through sand-banks; and the horrid pulsation and hysterical shudders which agitate every fibre of the great labouring creature to its centre, affect you in a way which no reasoning process can wholly resist, especially if you happen to suffer under a malady that must be left nameless, since no name can adequately describe its horrors.

The captain of the vessel, a small, thin, grisly man, repeatedly assured us that it was a remarkably fine passage, and, by way of illustrating its soothing influence, went fast asleep upon a sofa, while the vessel was undergoing these fearful spasms. He was used to it, and rather liked it. He had commanded the same vessel for ten years in these waters, and knew well the capabilities of both. He lived like a curlew, in a perpetual high wind, and a few roars of the tempest, more or less, made no perceptible difference to him. It was not pleasant to look at the frosty old man, stretched out in a dream, without a twitch on his face, and to see the passengers clinging to whatever they could grasp to keep themselves steady, and hardly daring to look at each other, lest anybody should ask a question, and expect an answer to it. But we had our revenge upon the captain. The ship gave a sudden lurch in the middle of the night, and pitched him out head-foremost into the floor of the cabin. This was a miserable bit of satisfaction for the fiction he had attempted to impose upon us; but, to our infinite mortification, it had no more effect upon him than upon the cushion of the sofa which rolled over him where he tumbled. The obstinate wretch merely shook himself, rubbed his eyes (hardly that), and went to sleep again.

Quaint and original characters will frequently be found amongst that sea-faring class which lives from shore to shore, in one monotonous voyage of life unvaried in its oscillating sameness by the