the last illumination lamp is extinguished, and
the last gas eagle flares coarsely in the white air
of dawn—will he go home to his lodging, and
quietly give up his spirit in a fume of charcoal,
unable to bear another solitary 15th?

The Bonaparte period, however, is still
sufficiently near, to leave us several remaining
links with it. An English Field-Marshal yet
lives who entered the army two years before
the dominion of Robespierre in France; the
commission of Lord Combermere dating from
1791. The Peninsular and Oriental Company
have on board one of their vessels, a man who
fought under Nelson at Copenhagen and
Trafalgar. He was only a boy at that time; but
I have known a person (not very long dead)
who was an able-bodied sailor at the battle of
the Nile, which was fought in 1798. As a man,
he had seen L'Orient blow up, and the Danish
capital surrender; had sailed with "Tommy
Trowbridge;" and might, as far as his age went,
have been concerned in the Mutiny at the Nore.
He was still a vigorous old fellow in 1855, and
wanted to join the fleet under Lyons, and have
a turn at the Russians. Mr. T. P. Cooke, who
still lives a prosperous gentleman, served under
Nelson, in His Majesty's ship Raven, at the
battle of St. Vincent's.

We all know the story of Richard Cromwell,
who, visiting the House of Lords in 1705,
and being asked by some one, who did not
know who he was, if he had ever seen or heard
the like, replied, " Never, since I sat in that
chair," pointing to the throne. What a
dramatic bringing together of two totally distinct
eras! The Commonwealth and the reign of Anne
—grim iron-clad Puritanism, and the silken
world of fops and belles—the literature of Milton,
and that of Addison—all meeting for a moment
within the circle of one little speech! Richard
Cromwell did not die until 1712, and might have
read of Sir Roger de Coverley in the pages of
the Spectator on the days of their publication.

Sometimes we hear of stories in this wise that
exceed belief, or which at any rate are so
improbable as to warrant scepticism. Of this character
is a relation recently published in an American
paper, to the effect that the writer, fifty years ago,
was told by a very old lady residing in the
neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon, that she had
heard from her grandmother certain particulars
of the funeral of Shakespeare; to wit, that the
clergyman who preached the funeral sermon
avowed his opinion that no man since the days of
the Apostle Paul had possessed so profound an
acquaintance with human nature; and that the
clergyman then concluded with the very
questionable aspiration, " Would to God he had been
a divine!" Now, fifty years ago Shakespeare had
been dead close upon two centuries; and it is not
very probable that at that time even a very old
lady would have been able to recollect another
very old lady who could speak from personal
knowledge of a circumstance which happened in
1616. Yet there is another story which, though
sounding even more wonderful, may be correct. In
the year 1851, the following extraordinary statement
was made in an English journal: " I have
an aunt, now eighty-nine years of age, who in
early life knew one who was in the habit of saying,
' I knew a man who knew a man who knew a man
who danced at court in the days of Richard the
Third.' Thus there have been but three links
between one who knew Richard the Third, and
one now living. My aunt's acquaintance (a Mr.
Harrison) could name his three predecessors,
who were members of his own family. Mr.
Harrison further stated that there was nothing
remarkable about Richard; that he was not the
hunchback ' lump of foul deformity' generally
believed until of late years." Startling as this
narration may appear, it might be proved, as a
mere matter of calculation, without any violence
to probability. Let us say that the lady who
was living in 1851, aged eighty-nine, received
her information from A. when she was ten years
of age: this must have been in 1772. We will
suppose that A. knew B. eighty-two years before
that period: this would carry us back to 1690.
B. living at that time, also recollects as far back
as eighty-two years. We are thus taken to the
year 1608; at which time B. knew C. whose
memory, again stretching back eighty-two years,
lands us at 1526, when C. might easily have
known a man who was at court in the time of
Richard the Third; since forty-two years from
the last-mentioned date will carry us straight into
that reign—Richard having ascended the throne
in 1483, and died in 1485. In this case the relation
is such as might easily have been borne in
mind by a mere child; but the lady who alleged
that she was at Shakespeare's funeral must have
been of mature years at the time, or she could
not have recollected the heads of the sermon;
and it is impossible to conceive how such a
person could have had a granddaughter living
in 1812.

A "MERCENARY" MARRIAGE.

SHE moves as light across the grass
As moves my shadow gaunt and tall;
And like my shadow, close yet free,
The thought of her aye follows me,
My little maid of Moreton Hall.

No matter how or where we loved,
Or when we'll wed, or what befal:—
I only feel she's mine at last,
I only know I'll hold her fast,
Though to dust crumbles Moreton Hall.

Her pedigree—good sooth! 'tis long:
Her grim sires stare from every wall;
And centuries of ancestral grace
Shine in her gentle girlish face,
As meek she moves through Moreton Hall.

Whilst I have—nothing! save, perhaps,
Some worthless heaps of idle gold,
And a true heart, the which her eye
Through glittering dross spied, womanly;—
Therefore the neighbours think her " sold."

I laugh—she laughs—the hills and vales
Laugh, as we ride 'neath chesnuts tall,
Or start the deer that near us graze,
And look up, large-eyed, with soft gaze
At the fair maid of Moreton Hall.