CHAPTER V
The most submissive where they love may be the most stubborn where they do not love.—Sophy is stubborn to Mr. Rugge.—That injured man summons to his side Mrs. Crane, imitating the policy of those potentates who would retrieve the failures of force by the successes of diplomacy.
Mr. Rugge has obtained his object. But now comes the question, “What will he do with it?” Question with as many heads as the Hydra; and no sooner does an author dispose of one head than up springs another.
Sophy has been bought and paid for: she is now, legally, Mr. Rugge’s property. But there was a wise peer who once bought Punch: Punch became his property, and was brought in triumph to his lordship’s house. To my lord’s great dismay, Punch would not talk. To Rugge’s great dismay, Sophy would not act.
Rendered up to Jasper Losely and Mrs. Crane, they had lost not an hour in removing her from Gatesboro’ and its neighbourhood. They did not, however, go back to the village in which they had left Rugge, but returned straight to London, and wrote to the manager to join them there.
Sophy, once captured, seemed stupefied: she evinced no noisy passion; she made no violent resistance. When she was told to love and obey a father in Jasper Losely, she lifted her eyes to his face; then turned them away, and shook her head mute and credulous. That man her father! she, did not believe it. Indeed, Jasper took no pains to convince her of the relationship or win her attachment. He was not unkindly rough: he seemed wholly indifferent; probably he was so. For the ruling vice of the man was in his egotism. It was not so much that he had bad principles and bad feelings, as that he had no principles and no feelings at all, except as they began, continued, and ended in that system of centralization which not more paralyzes healthful action in a State than it does in the individual man. Self-indulgence with him was absolute. He was not without power of keen calculation, not without much cunning. He could conceive a project for some gain far off in the future, and concoct, for its realization, schemes subtly woven, astutely guarded. But he could not secure their success by any long-sustained sacrifices of the caprice of one hour or the indolence of the next. If it had been a great object to him for life to win Sophy’s filial affection, he would not have bored himself for five minutes each day to gain that object. Besides, he had just enough of shame to render him uneasy at the sight of the child he had deliberately sold. So after chucking her under the chin, and telling her to be a good girl and be grateful for all that Mrs. Crane had done for her and meant still to do, he consigned her almost solely to that lady’s care.
When Rugge arrived, and Sophy was informed of her intended destination, she broke silence,—her colour went and came quickly,—she declared, folding her arms upon her breast, that she would never act if separated from her grandfather. Mrs. Crane, struck by her manner, suggested to Rugge that it might be as well, now that she was legally secured to the manager, to humour her wish and re-engage Waife. Whatever the tale with which, in order to obtain Sophy from the Mayor, she had turned that worthy magistrate’s mind against the Comedian, she had not gratified Mr. Rugge by a similar confidence to him. To him she said nothing which might operate against renewing engagements with Waife, if he were so disposed. But Rugge had no faith in a child’s firmness, and he had a strong spite against Waife, so he obstinately refused. He insisted, however, as a peremptory condition of the bargain, that Mr. Losely and Mrs. Crane should accompany him to the town to which he had transferred his troupe, both in order by their presence to confirm his authority over Sophy, and to sanction his claim to her, should Waife reappear and dispute it. For Rugge’s profession being scarcely legitimate and decidedly equivocal, his right to bring up a female child to the same calling might be called into question before a magistrate, and necessitate the production of her father in order to substantiate the special contract. In return, the manager handsomely offered to Mr. Losely and Mrs. Crane to pay their expenses in the excursion,—a liberality haughtily rejected by Mrs. Crane for herself, though she agreed at her own charge to accompany Losely if he decided on complying with the manager’s request. Losely at first raised objections, but hearing that there would be races in the neighbourhood, and having a peculiar passion for betting and all kinds of gambling, as well as an ardent desire to enjoy his L100 in so fashionable a manner, he consented to delay his return to the Continent, and attend Arabella Crane to the provincial Elis. Rugge, carried off Sophy to her fellow “orphans.”
AND SOPHY WOULD NOT ACT!
In vain she was coaxed; in vain she was threatened; in vain she was deprived of food; in vain shut up in a dark hole; in vain was the lash held over her. Rugge, tyrant though he was, did not suffer the lash to fall. His self-restraint there might be humanity,—might be fear of the consequences; for the state of her health began to alarm him. She might die; there might be an inquest. He wished now that he had taken Mrs. Crane’s suggestion, and re-engaged Waife. But where was Waife? Meanwhile he had advertised the young Phenomenon; placarded the walls with the name of Juliet Araminta; got up the piece of the Remorseless Baron, with a new rock-scene. Waife had had nothing to say in that drama, so any one could act his part.
The first performance was announced for that night: there would be such an audience! the best seats even now pre-engaged; first night of the race-week. The clock had struck seven; the performance began at eight. AND SOPHY WOULD NOT ACT!
The child was seated in a space that served for the greenroom, behind the scenes. The whole company had been convened to persuade or shame her out of her obstinacy. The king’s lieutenant, the seductive personage of the troupe, was on one knee to her, like a lover. He was accustomed to lovers’ parts, both on the stage and off it. Off it, he had one favoured phrase, hackneyed, but effective. “You are too pretty to be so cruel.” Thrice he now repeated that phrase, with a simper between each repetition that might have melted a heart of stone. Behind Sophy’s chair, and sticking calico-flowers into the child’s tresses, stood the senior matron of the establishment,—not a bad sort of woman,—who kept the dresses, nursed the sick, revered Rugge, told fortunes on a pack of cards which she always kept in her pocket, and acted occasionally in parts where age was no drawback and ugliness desirable,—such as a witch, or duenna, or whatever in the dialogue was poetically called “Hag.” Indeed, Hag was the name she usually took from Rugge; that which she bore from her defunct husband was Gormerick. This lady, as she braided the garland, was also bent on the soothing system, saying, with great sweetness, considering that her mouth was full of pins, “Now, deary, now, dovey, look at ooself in the glass; we could beat oo, and pinch oo, and stick pins into oo, dovey, but we won’t. Dovey will be good, I know;” and a great patch of rouge came on the child’s pale cheeks. The clown therewith, squatting before her with his hands on his knees, grinned lustily, and shrieked out, “My eyes, what a beauty!”
Rugge, meanwhile, one hand thrust in his bosom, contemplated the diplomatic efforts of his ministers, and saw, by Sophy’s compressed lips and unwinking eyes, that their cajoleries were unsuccessful. He approached and hissed into her ear, “Don’t madden me! don’t! you will act, eh?”
“No,” said Sophy, suddenly rising; and tearing the wreath from her hair, she set her small foot on it with force. “No, not if you kill me!”
“Gods!” faltered Rugge. “And the sum I have paid! I am diddled! Who has gone for Mrs. Crane?”
“Tom,” said the clown.
The word was scarcely out of the clown’s mouth ere Mrs. Crane herself emerged from a side scene, and, putting off her bonnet, laid both hands on the child’s shoulders, and looked her in the face without speaking. The child as firmly returned the gaze. Give that child a martyr’s cause, and in that frail body there would have been a martyr’s soul. Arabella Crane, not inexperienced in children, recognized a power of will stronger than the power of brute force, in that tranquillity of eye, the spark of calm light in its tender blue, blue, pure as the sky; light, steadfast as the star.
“Leave her to me, all of you,” said Mrs. Crane. “I will take her to your private room, Mr. Rugge;” and she led the child away to a sort of recess, room it could not be rightly called, fenced round with boxes and crates, and containing the manager’s desk and two stools.
“Sophy,” then said Mrs. Crane, “you say you will not act unless your grandfather be with you. Now, hear me. You know that I have been always stern and hard with you. I never professed to love you,—nor do I. But you have not found me untruthful. When I say a thing seriously, as I am speaking now, you may believe me. Act to-night, and I will promise you faithfully that I will either bring your grandfather here, or I will order it so that you shall be restored to him. If you refuse, I make no threat, but I shall leave this place; and my belief is that you will be your grandfather’s death.”
“His death! his death! I!”
“By first dying yourself. Oh, you smile; you think it would be happiness to die. What matter that the old man you profess to care for is broken-hearted! Brat, leave selfishness to boys: you are a girl! suffer!”
“Selfish!” murmured Sophy, “selfish! that was said of me before. Selfish! ah, I understand. No, I ought not to wish to die: what would become of him?” She fell on her knees, and raising both her clasped hands, prayed inly, silently, an instant, not more. She rose. “If I do act, then,—it is a promise: you will keep it. I shall see him: he shall know where I am; we shall meet!”
“A promise,—sacred. I will keep it. Oh, girl, how much you will love some day! how your heart will ache! and when you are my age, look at that heart, then at your glass; perhaps you may be, within and without, like me.”
Sophy, innocent Sophy, stared, awe-stricken, but uncomprehending; Mrs. Crane led her back passive.
“There, she will act. Put on the wreath. Trick her out. Hark ye, Mr. Rugge. This is for one night. I have made conditions with her: either you must take back her grandfather, or—she must return to him.”
“And my L100?”
“In the latter case ought to be repaid to you.”
“Am I never to have the Royal York Theatre? Ambition of my life, ma’am. Dreamed of it thrice! Ha! but she will act; and succeed. But to take back the old vagabond,—a bitter pill. He shall halve it with me! Ma’am, I’m your grateful—”
CHAPTER VI
Threadbare is the simile which compares the world to a stage. Schiller, less complimentary than Shakspeare, lowers the illustration from a stage to a puppet-show. But ever between realities and shows there is a secret communication, an undetected interchange,—sometimes a stern reality in the heart of the ostensible actor, a fantastic stage-play in the brain of the unnoticed spectator. The bandit’s child on the proscenium is still poor little Sophy, in spite of garlands and rouge. But that honest rough-looking fellow to whom, in respect for services to sovereign and country, the apprentice yields way, may he not be—the crafty Comedian?
TARAN-TARANTARA! rub-a-dub-dub! play up horn! roll drum! a quarter to eight; and the crowd already thick before Rugge’s Grand Exhibition,—” Remorseless Baron and Bandit’s Child! Young Phenomenon,—Juliet Araminta,—Patronized by the Nobility in general, and expecting daily to be summoned to perform before the Queen,—Vivat Regina!”—Ruba-dub-dub! The company issue from the curtain, range in front of the proscenuim. Splendid dresses. The Phenomenon!—‘t is she!
“My eyes, there’s a beauty!” cries the clown.
The days have already grown somewhat shorter; but it is not yet dusk. How charmingly pretty she still is, despite that horrid paint; but how wasted those poor bare snowy arms!
A most doleful lugubrious dirge mingles with the drum and horn. A man has forced his way close by the stage,—a man with a confounded cracked hurdy-gurdy. Whine! whine! creaks the hurdy-gurdy. “Stop that! stop that mu-zeek!” cries a delicate apprentice, clapping his hands to his ears. “Pity a poor blind—” answers the man with the hurdygurdy.
“Oh, you are blind, are you? but we are not deaf. There’s a penny not to play. What black thing have you got there by a string?”
“My dog, sir!”
“Deuced ugly one; not like a dog; more like a bear with horns!”
“I say, master,” cries the clown, “here’s a blind man come to see the Phenomenon!”
The crowd laugh; they make way for the blind man’s black dog. They suspect, from the clown’s address, that the blind man has something to do with the company.
You never saw two uglier specimens of their several species than the blind man and his black dog. He had rough red hair and a red beard, his face had a sort of twist that made every feature seem crooked. His eyes were not bandaged, but the lids were closed, and he lifted them up piteously as if seeking for light. He did not seem, however, like a common beggar: had rather the appearance of a reduced sailor. Yes, you would have bet ten to one he had been a sailor; not that his dress belonged to that noble calling, but his build, the roll of his walk, the tie of his cravat, a blue anchor tattooed on that great brown hand: certainly a sailor; a British tar! poor man.
The dog was hideous enough to have been exhibited as a lusus naturae; evidently very aged,—for its face and ears were gray, the rest of it a rusty reddish black; it had immensely long ears, pricked up like horns; it was a dog that must have been brought from foreign parts; it might have come from Acheron, sire by Cerberus, so portentous, and (if not irreverent the epithet) so infernal was its aspect, with that gray face, those antlered ears, and its ineffably weird demeanour altogether. A big dog, too, and evidently a strong one. All prudent folks would have made way for a man led by that dog. Whine creaked the hurdy-gurdy, and bow-wow all of a sudden barked the dog. Sophy stifled a cry, pressed her hand to her breast, and such a ray of joy flashed over her face that it would have warmed your heart for a month to have seen it.
But do you mean to say, Mr. Author, that that British tar (gallant, no doubt, but hideous) is Gentleman Waife, or that Stygian animal the snowy-curled Sir Isaac?
Upon my word, when I look at them myself, I, the Historian, am puzzled. If it had not been for that bow-bow, I am sure Sophy would not have suspected. Taratarantara! Walk in, ladies and gentlemen, walk in; the performance is about to commence! Sophy lingers last.
“Yes, sir,” said the blind man, who had been talking to the apprentice, “yes, sir,” said he, loud and emphatically, as if his word had been questioned. “The child was snowed up, but luckily the window of the hut was left open: exactly at two o’clock in the morning, that dog came to the window, set up a howl, and—”
Soppy could hear no more—led away behind the curtain by the King’s Lieutenant. But she had heard enough to stir her heart with an emotion that set all the dimples round her lip into undulating play.
CHAPTER VII
A sham carries off a reality.
And she did act, and how charmingly! with what glee and what gusto! Rugge was beside himself with pride and rapture. He could hardly perform his own Baronial part for admiration. The audience, a far choicer and more fastidious one than that in the Surrey village, was amazed, enthusiastic. “I shall live to see my dream come true! I shall have the great York theatre!” said Rugge, as he took off his wig and laid his head on his pillow. “Restore her for the L100! not for thousands!”
Alas, my sweet Sophy, alas! Has not the joy that made thee perform so well undone thee? Ah, hadst thou but had the wit to act horribly, and be hissed!
“Uprose the sun and uprose Baron Rugge.”
Not that ordinarily he was a very early man; but his excitement broke his slumbers. He had taken up his quarters on the ground-floor of a small lodging-house close to his exhibition; in the same house lodged his senior matron, and Sophy herself. Mrs. Gormerick, being ordered to watch the child and never lose sight of her, slept in the same room with Sophy, in the upper story of the house. The old woman served Rugge for housekeeper, made his tea, grilled his chop, and for company’s sake shared his meals. Excitement as often sharpens the appetite as takes it away. Rugge had supped on hope, and he felt a craving for a more substantial breakfast. Accordingly, when he had dressed, he thrust his head into the passage, and seeing there the maid-of-all-work unbarring the street-door, bade her go upstairs and wake the Hag, that is, Mrs. Gormerick. Saying this he extended a key; for he ever took the precaution, before retiring to rest, to lock the door of the room to which Sophy was consigned on the outside, and guard the key till the next morning.
The maid nodded, and ascended the stairs. Less time than he expected passed away before Mrs. Gormerick made her appearance, her gray hair streaming under her nightcap, her form indued in a loose wrapper,—her very face a tragedy.
“Powers above! What has happened?” exclaimed Rugge, prophetically.
“She is gone,” sobbed Mrs. Gormerick; and, seeing the lifted arm and clenched fist of the manager, prudently fainted away.
CHAPTER VIII
Corollaries from the problems suggested in chapters VI. and VII.
Broad daylight, nearly nine o’clock indeed, and Jasper Losely is walking back to his inn from the place at which he had dined the evening before. He has spent the night drinking, gambling, and though he looks heated, there is no sign of fatigue. Nature, in wasting on this man many of her most glorious elements of happiness, had not forgotten an herculean constitution,—always restless and never tired, always drinking and never drunk. Certainly it is some consolation to delicate invalids that it seldom happens that the sickly are very wicked. Criminals are generally athletic; constitution and conscience equally tough; large backs to their heads; strong suspensorial muscles; digestions that save them from the over-fine nerves of the virtuous. The native animal must be vigorous in the human being, when the moral safeguards are daringly overleapt. Jasper was not alone, but with an acquaintance he had made at the dinner, and whom he invited to his inn to breakfast; they were walking familiarly arm-in-arm. Very unlike the brilliant Losely,—a young man under thirty, who seemed to have washed out all the colours of youth in dirty water. His eyes dull, their whites yellow; his complexion sodden. His form was thickset and heavy; his features pug, with a cross of the bull-dog. In dress, a specimen of the flash style of sporting man, as exhibited on the Turf, or more often perhaps in the Ring; Belcher neckcloth, with an immense pin representing a jockey at full gallop; cut-away coat, corduroy breeches, and boots with tops of a chalky white. Yet, withal, not the air and walk of a genuine born and bred sporting man, even of the vulgar order. Something about him which reveals the pretender. A would-be hawk with a pigeon’s liver,—a would-be sportsman with a Cockney’s nurture.
Samuel Adolphus Poole is an orphan of respectable connections. His future expectations chiefly rest on an uncle from whom, as godfather, he takes the loathed name of Samuel. He prefers to sign himself Adolphus; he is popularly styled Dolly. For his present existence he relies ostensibly on his salary as an assistant in the house of a London tradesman in a fashionable way of business. Mr. Latham, his employer, has made a considerable fortune, less by his shop than by discounting the bills of his customers, or of other borrowers whom the loan draws into the net of the custom. Mr. Latham connives at the sporting tastes of Dolly Poole. Dolly has often thus been enabled to pick up useful pieces of information as to the names and repute of such denizens of the sporting world as might apply to Mr. Latham for temporary accommodation. Dolly Poole has many sporting friends; he has also many debts. He has been a dupe, he is now a rogue; but he wants decision of character to put into practice many valuable ideas that his experience of dupe and his development into rogue suggest to his ambition. Still, however, now and then, wherever a shabby trick can be safely done, he is what he calls “lucky.” He has conceived a prodigious admiration for Jasper Losely, one cause for which will be explained in the dialogue about to be recorded; another cause for which is analogous to that loving submission with which some ill-conditioned brute acknowledges a master in the hand that has thrashed it. For at Losely’s first appearance at the convivial meeting just concluded, being nettled at the imperious airs of superiority which that roysterer assumed, mistaking for effeminacy Jasper’s elaborate dandyism, and not recognizing in the bravo’s elegant proportions the tiger-like strength of which, in truth, that tiger-like suppleness should have warned him, Dolly Poole provoked a quarrel, and being himself a stout fellow, nor unaccustomed to athletic exercises, began to spar; the next moment he was at the other end of the room full sprawl on the floor; and two minutes afterwards, the quarrel made up by conciliating banqueters, with every bone in his skin seeming still to rattle, he was generously blubbering out that he never bore malice, and shaking hands with Jasper Losely as if he had found a benefactor. But now to the dialogue.
JASPER.—“Yes, Poole, my hearty, as you say, that fellow trumping my best club lost me the last rubber. There’s no certainty in whist, if one has a spoon for a partner.”
POOLE.—“No certainty in every rubber, but next to certainty in the long run, when a man plays as well as you do, Mr. Losely. Your winnings to-night must have been pretty large, though you had a bad partner almost every hand; pretty large, eh?”
JASPER (carelessly).—“Nothing to talk of,—a few ponies!”
POOLE.—“More than a few; I should know.”
JASPER.—“Why? You did not play after the first rubber.”
POOLE.—“No, when I saw your play on that first rubber, I cut out, and bet on you; and very grateful to you I am. Still you would win more with a partner who understood your game.”
The shrewd Dolly paused a moment, and leaning significantly on Jasper’s arm, added, in a half whisper, “I do; it is a French one.”
Jasper did not change colour, but a quick rise of the eyebrow, and a slight jerk of the neck, betrayed some little surprise or uneasiness: however, he rejoined without hesitation, “French, ay! In France there is more dash in playing out trumps than there is with English players.”
“And with a player like you,” said Poole, still in a half whisper, “more trumps to play out.”
Jasper turned round sharp and short; the hard, cruel expression of his mouth, little seen of late, came back to it. Poole recoiled, and his bones began again to ache. “I did not mean to offend you, Mr. Losely, but to caution.”
“Caution!”
“There were two knowing coves, who, if they had not been so drunk, would not have lost their money without a row, and they would have seen how they lost it; they are sharpers: you served them right; don’t be angry with me. You want a partner; so do I: you play better than I do, but I play well; you shall have two-thirds of our winnings, and when you come to town I’ll introduce you to a pleasant set of young fellows—green.”
Jasper mused a moment. “You know a thing or two, I see, Master Poole, and we’ll discuss the whole subject after breakfast. Ar’n’t you hungry? No! I am! Hillo! who ‘s that?”
His arm was seized by Mr. Rugge. “She’s gone,—fled,” gasped the manager, breathless. “Out of the lattice; fifteen feet high; not dashed to pieces; vanished.”
“Go on and order breakfast,” said Losely to Mr. Poole, who was listening too inquisitively. He drew the manager away. “Can’t you keep your tongue in your head before strangers? The girl is gone?”
“Out of the lattice, and fifteen feet high!”
“Any sheets left hanging out of the lattice?”
“Sheets! No.”
“‘Then she did not go without help: somebody must have thrown up to her a rope-ladder; nothing so easy; done it myself scores of times for the descent of ‘maids who love the moon,’ Mr. Rugge. But at her age there is not a moon; at least there is not a man in the moon: one must dismiss, then, the idea of a rope-ladder,—too precocious. But are you quite sure she is gone? not hiding in some cupboard? Sacre! very odd. Have you seen Mrs. Crane about it?”
“Yes, just come from her; she thinks that villain Waife must have stolen her. But I want you, sir, to come with me to a magistrate.”
“Magistrate! I! why? nonsense; set the police to work.”
“Your deposition that she is your lawful child, lawfully made over to me, is necessary for the inquisition; I mean police.”
“Hang it, what a bother! I hate magistrates, and all belonging to them. Well, I must breakfast! I’ll see to it afterwards. Oblige me by not calling Mr. Waife a villain; good old fellow in his way.”
“Good! Powers above!”
“But if he took her off, how did he get at her? It must have been preconcerted.”
“Ha! true. But she has not been suffered to speak to a soul not in the company, Mrs. Crane excepted.”
“Perhaps at the performance last night some signal was given?”
“But if Waife had been there I should have seen him; my troupe would have known him: such a remarkable face; one eye too.”
“Well, well, do what you think best. I’ll call on you after breakfast; let me go now. Basta! Basta!”
Losely wrenched himself from the manager, and strode off to the inn; then, ere joining Poole, he sought Mrs. Crane. “This going before a magistrate,” said Losely, “to depose that I have made over my child to that blackguard showman—in this town too, after such luck as I have had and where bright prospects are opening on me—is most disagreeable. And supposing, when we have traced Sophy, she should be really with the old man; awkward! In short, my dear friend, my dear Bella,” (Losely could be very coaxing when it was worth his while) “you just manage this for me. I have a fellow in the next room waiting to breakfast: as soon as breakfast is over I shall be off to the race-ground, and so shirk that ranting old bore; you’ll call on him instead, and settle it somehow.” He was out of the room before she could answer.
Mrs. Crane found it no easy matter to soothe the infuriate manager when he heard Losely was gone to amuse himself at the race-course. Nor did she give herself much trouble to pacify Mr. Rugge’s anger or assist his investigations. Her interest in the whole affair seemed over. Left thus to his own devices, Rugge, however, began to institute a sharp, and what promised to be an effective, investigation. He ascertained that the fugitive certainly had not left by the railway or by any of the public conveyances; he sent scoots over all the neighbourhood: he enlisted the sympathy of the police, who confidently assured him that they had “a network over the three kingdoms.” Rugge’s suspicions were directed to Waife: he could collect, however, no evidence to confirm them. No person answering to Waife’s description had been seen in the town. Once, indeed, Rugge was close on the right scent; for, insisting upon Waife’s one eye, and his possession of a white dog, he was told by several witnesses that a man blind of two eyes, and led by a black dog, had been close before the stage, just previous to the performance. But then the clown had spoken to that very man; all the Thespian company had observed him; all of them had known Waife familiarly for years; and all deposed that any creature more unlike to Waife than the blind man could not be turned out of Nature’s workshop. But where was that blind man? They found out the wayside inn in which he had taken a lodging for the night; and there it was ascertained that he had paid for his room beforehand, stating that he should start for the race-course early in the morning. Rugge himself set out to the racecourse to kill two birds with one stone,—catch Mr. Losely, examine the blind man himself.
He did catch Mr. Losely, and very nearly caught something else; for that gentleman was in a ring of noisy horsemen, mounted on a hired hack, and loud as the noisiest. When Rugge came up to his stirrup, and began his harangue, Losely turned his hack round with so sudden an appliance of bit and spur, that the animal lashed out, and its heel went within an inch of the manager’s cheek-bone. Before Rugge could recover, Losely was in a hand-gallop. But the blind man! Of course Rugge did not find him? You are mistaken: he did. The blind man was there, dog and all. The manager spoke to him, and did not know him from Adam.
Nor have you or I, my venerated readers, any right whatsoever to doubt whether Mr. Rugge could be so stolidly obtuse. Granting that blind sailor to be the veritable William Waife, William Waife was a man of genius, taking pains to appear an ordinary mortal. And the anecdotes of Munden, or of Bamfylde Moore Carew, suffice to tell us how Protean is the power of transformation in a man whose genius is mimetic. But how often does it happen to us, venerated readers, not to recognize a man of genius, even when he takes no particular pains to escape detection! A man of genius may be for ten years our next-door neighbour; he may dine in company with us twice a week; his face may be as familiar to our eyes as our armchair; his voice to our ears as the click of our parlour-clock: yet we are never more astonished than when all of a sudden, some bright day, it is discovered that our next-door neighbour is—a man of genius. Did you ever hear tell of the life of a man of genius but what there were numerous witnesses who deposed to the fact, that until, perfidious dissembler! he flared up and set the Thames on fire they had never seen anything in him; an odd creature, perhaps a good creature,—probably a poor creature,—but a MAN of GENIUS! They would as soon have suspected him of being the Khann of Tartary! Nay, candid readers, are there not some of you who refuse to the last to recognize the maa of genius, till he has paid his penny to Charon, and his passport to immortality has been duly examined by the customhouse officers of Styx! When one half the world drag forth that same next-door neighbour, place him on a pedestal, and have him cried, “Oyez! Oyez! Found a man of genius! Public property! open to inspection!” does not the other half the world put on its spectacles, turn up its nose, and cry, “That a man of genius, indeed! Pelt him!—pelt him!” Then of course there is a clatter, what the vulgar call “a shindy,” round the pedestal. Squeezed by his believers, shied at by his scoffers, the poor man gets horribly mauled about, and drops from the perch in the midst of the row. Then they shovel him over, clap a great stone on his relics, wipe their foreheads, shake hands, compromise the dispute, the one half the world admitting that though he was a genius he was still an ordinary man; the other half allowing that though he was an ordinary man he was still a genius. And so on to the next pedestal with its “Hic stet,” and the next great stone with its “Hic jacet.”