self beaten, and enraged by listening to John's bragging of his illustrious exploits, and of this his last and greatest, calls in a legion of witches and warlocks, before whom John's spirit quails. These are accompanied by the ghosts of those John had slain in his encounters; and when he is put on his trial before Satan as judge, they give evidence against him. Just then "Aurora peep'd athwart the gloom; The gray cock clapp'd his wings, and crew; And, helter skelter, swift off flew The deil and a' the infernal crew." And John returns to tell his wonderful adventures to one of the "Five sweet flowers, As ever blush'd in bridal bowers." The poem is full of grotesque imagery and fun, through which there runs a strain of pathos. The Scotch is capital, and as forcible and descriptive as the most enthusiastic admirer of the language could wish. Of his other poems we may mention "The Murdent Mynstrell," which contains some pretty lines: "Her haire was faire, her eyne were blue, And the dimples o' luve play'd roun' her sweet mou'; "The Dream" contains some very effective passages, and is throughout highly poetic, reminding us in some points of Ossian. "Kitty Pert," of whom it is said "she liket zneeshin and liked it zcented," is full of spirit, and is worth study from the peculiar nature of the dialect, then common among the fishing population of Montrose, and very unlike the surrounding Scotch. The following lines were found after his death, along with the statement which he named "The Last," and bear the impress of the despairing state of his mind: "Say, what is worse than black despair? "Tis that sick hope too weak for flying, That plays at fast and loose with care, And wastes a weary life in dying. "Though promise be a welcome guest, Yet it may be too late a comer; "Tis but a cuckoo voice at best, The joy of spring, scarce heard in summer. "Then now consent this very hour; Let the kind word of peace be spoken: Like dew upon a wither'd flower, Is comfort to the heart that's broken. "The heart, whose will is from above, May yet its mortal taint discover; For Time, which cannot alter love, Hath power to kill the hapless lover." TENNYSON AND THE "QUARTERLY REVIEW." THE "Last Tournament" is intended by its author to occupy a place amongst the "Idylls of the King," between Pelleas and Guinevere, forming as it does a fitting introduction to the doom of Tristram, and to the full disclosure of Lancelot's ill-starred attachment to the queen of the "blameless king," who loved both his wife and his knight too well to dream of suspicion. Here we have depicted in detail the ruin of all Arthur's highest purposes, the failure of his noblest hopes in founding "the Table Round." That ruin is æsthetically rendered magnificent, as it shines in the light of the poet's splendid idealization; that failure is rendered morally grander than ordinary successes, as it points to a faith in an Almighty Disposer, who shatters our hopes only to purify and to elevate them, while high above the "broken music," the discords, and the meal chaos of society, the poet sings to us the true harmony-not to be found on earth "That makes a silent music up in heaven, And I, and Arthur, and the angels hear." Here, in detail we have ail that Arthur glanced at in that most tenderly wrrible scene of his parting with Guine vere: "Then came thy shameful sin with Lancelot ; Of all my heart had destined did obtain." For the story of the "Last Tournament" we must refer our readers to the poem itself, as we have space only for a few comments upon it. It is, in the first place, singularly coherent, as a part of a coherent and comprehensive Arthurian epic; a subject which some of our readers may be surprised to learn was twice contemplated by Milton himself. The first mention of such a purpose is found in the verses which Milton sent to Manso in 1739, before leaving Naples: "Si quando indigenas revocabo in carmina reges, Again, on his return to England, our greatest epic poet professes his determination to make Arthur and his Round Table the subject of an epic poem; as we may see in the "Epitaphium Damonis," in a passage too long to quote. 66 The Idylls" are an Arthurian epic, of various, but harmonious parts, with each part, not like the limbs of a living body, necessarily dependent upon and co-ordinate with other limbs in the same frame, but correlated to other parts in that true epic unity which requires that the incidents shall have one common bearing and one common centre of interest, and all the characters shall co-operate towards one common object. King Arthur, and his sublime effort to regenerate society by putting down all that is base or mean, and lifting up all that is pure- is the centre and circumference of this epic circle, in which the Laureate has idealized and sublimated into the highest inspiration of poetry, the sombre and half-forgotten legends of "the blameless king." A nobler mark was never aimed at by the winged words of any poet, save Milton himself, as he sang "To assert Eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to man." As each part of the "Idylls" is in perfect harmony with the other parts, echoing the same sentiment, colored with the same color, though in varying shades, so is each part of this last Idyll in perfect harmony of form and color and tone with its every other part. It is a marvel of subtle harmonies, of delicate consistencies. It sings of the glory of the Round Table as "no more;" of the downfall of King Arthur's hopes at a time when he looked for the golden fruit of his labor, and found only the withered leaf. Hence it becomes the saddest of all the poet's Idylls; its very words its music falls upon our heart like a dirge for weep; the dead; its verses wail like the wailing winds of autumn, that scatter the leaves at our feet. Then look to the true art of the poet, in choosing autumn- "the fall," (as the Americans beautifully call it) — as the season of the "Last Tournament," and so running a parallel between the moral decline of chivalry, and the decline of nature at the "Fall' of the year, with its "yellowing woods," "the faded fields,” "the withered leaf, "When fell thick rain, plume droopt, and mantle clung, And pettish cries awoke, and the way day Went glooming down in wet and weariness." When Arthur has to mourn over his broken hopes and baffled purposes, "All in a death-dumb autumn dripping gloom." Then, like its own "autumntide," the poem is singularly rich in coloring and in picturesqueness, to a degree not to be found in the other Idylls; as if the poet wished to gild the departing day of chivalry with an aureole of glorywith "a wide-winged sunset of many splendors. In this short poem there are no fewer than about fifty passages descriptive of color, in which the yellow and golden hues of autumn are most conspicuous. Nor is this all. Metaphors and similes are drawn from the same season of sadness and corruption. The fond and faithful fool of King Arthur "The red fruit Grown on a magic oak-tree in mid-heaven." It has been objected to little Dagonet, King Arthur's fool, in the Idylls, that he is out of place in so sad a strain, and out of nature in the bitterness of his grief, as he grieves with his royal master's grief. On the contrary, we think the introduction of Dagonet is a master-touch of the poet. It answers many purposes of the poem which could in no other way be so well answered. It supplies a chartered tongue, free as the winds of heaven, to blow upon the vices of the court; it heightens by contrasted lights the darkest shadows of the appalling features of moral grandeur in ruins, and the whole tone of melancholy which pervades the poem. The conception of Dagonet is partly Homeric, partly Shakspearian. His stinging sarcasm, his forbidding appearance, his incessant babble, and even the expression "hedge of teeth," ρkoç ódóvтwv, are thoroughly Homeric. On the other hand, his loyalty to his lord, his true tenderness of heart, and the sound sense he masks under the "motley" garb of folly, remind us of King Lear's fool. Who will venture to blame Shakspeare for introducing "a fool" to babble folly with King Lear, in that "tragedy of tragedies," as it has been happily termed? Like Lear, King Arthur has fallen the victim of too generous and trustful a heart; like Lear, his household gods have been shattered around him; like Lear. from the abyss of his riven heart he cries from earth to heaven, and on earth finds his poor court fool the only faithful amongst all the faithless, as he clings and sobs to Arthur's feet, with a world of sadness on his lips: "And Dagonet answered, Ay; and when the land Was freed, and the queen false, ye set yourself To babble about him, all to show your wit, And whether he were king by courtesy, Or king by right, and so went harping down The black king's highway, got so far, and grew So witty, that ye play'd at ducks and drakes With Arthur's vows on the great lake of fire. Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?' 66 6 'Nay, fool,' said Tristram ; 'not in open day.' The wealth of illustration in the poem is not its least charm. How true to nature is this picture :— "Far over sands marbled with moon and cloud." And how charming this: "And down a street-way hung with folds of pure "Tintagil-half in sea, and high on land, Then how resonant of Nature's sweetest and grandest melodies are such sounds as "the wandering warble of the brook," and the "low roll of autumn thunder," and, "The voice that bellowed round the barriers roar.. An ocean-sounding welcome to the knight." And lastly we must note that here too, as elsewhere in Tennyson's great epic, we find those single gems of thought, reflecting the light of experience and wisdom as well as the splendor of genius; proverbial as well as poetical, teaching us even while they charm us, individual indeed, like those of Shakspeare, as illustrative of particular points of character, but universal, as applicable to all humanity. Such, for example, as "The greater man, the greater courtesy." In a recent Quarterly there is a very unfair attack, from whatever motive, on Tennyson as a poet, compared with Byron as a poet. We will not say that this attempt to win back the fading popularity of Byron at the expense of Tennyson was dictated by any commercial motives; but we must be allowed to say that the proprietors of the Quarterly and of Byron's works secm, in this case, to have degraded a great literary review into what looks much like an adververy tising medium. The writer of this singular article professes to deal only with the comparative reputation of Tennyson, not with his positive merits. But how this can be accomplished is beyond our simple comprehension; believing, as we do, that all comparisons are worthless as means of determining the comparative merits and demerits of poets. unless in the first case we determine something of the positive merits of the poets to be compared. Let this But pass. with whom does this writer elect to compare Tennyson? Is it with his living contemporaries? Is it with the mighty masters of minstrelsy long gone down to the grave, who wrote in the same metre, touched upon like topics, and sang in a kindred strain? It is with none of these that the comparison is made, but with a poet with whom Tennyson has little or nothing in common, and this, too, under the transparent guise of reviewing a German work, of which "the English translation is in hand," but which has not yet appeared. This, too, wears a very ugly look, but not one whit worse than the fulsome praise written in the same journal on Lord Lytton's "Horace (one of the worst translations ever written, as we have shown elsewhere) - even before the translation appeared to the public eye. If such things are done in the green tree, what are we to expect in the dry? 1. The writer of the article in question has spared us some trouble in refuting his attack on Tennyson, for he has refuted himself. At one time this writer accepts the critical canon of Chamfort, that "what makes the success of numerous works is the affinity between the mediocrity of the ideas of the author, and the mediocrity of the ideas of the public." Now, if this is a valid rule to account for Tennyson's present and ever-growing popularity, it is equally valid to account for Byron's once unrivalled popularity, when his sunrise passed at once into the meridian of fame. But will the writer here stick to his theory, and maintain that the popularity of the poet of his heart was based upon "mediocrity of ideas," even against his own assertion of the transcendent genius of the poet? What, however, becomes of this theory and its application to Tennyson, when, as the writer admits, this poet has become the chosen bard of the educated classes of England; that is, of those who know best how to appreciate and appraise poetry? If we judge poems too commonly, as we are here told, "rather by our own feelings, prejudices, and passions, than by their inherent and individual qualities, and no man is a fair judge who does not habitually analyze his impressions as they are caught up or imbibed,”- then on this writer's own showing the most highly cultured classes are the best judges of poetry, as they can best analyze their own feelings. It is notorious that the world of poetic wealth to be found in the meditative poetry of Milton and Wordsworth was lost to the English nation for a considerable time, until its eyes were opened by culture. What Addison accomplished in this way in the "Spectator" for Milton's poetry, De Quincey accomplished in his "Essays" for Wordsworth's muse. Time and culture we look upon as the best tests of the poetry that is most worthy to live. 2. We cannot go along with this writer in his assumption that the best poems are those which best bear literal or prose translation. This test holds good only of poems when the matter is all in all, rather than the spirit and the manner of the poet. Is this a test in any way fair to poets such as Virgil and Tennyson, whose marvellous beauty of presentation is one of their greatest charms, whose tender grace and subtlest idealization are untranslatable, like the pale roses of Lesbos, which lost their honey when they breathed an alien air, like the plant of Milton, which bore its own bright golden flower" only upon 66 one soil"? Does it follow that that poet has failed in his art who, by a perfect mastery over his own language, and the metre of that language, has sung forth marvellous melodies, which ring in the brain and the heart of an educated and an enraptured nation, which can understand him, because, forsooth, he becomes less powerful as a poet when translated into the tongue of others who do not understand him? Why, even this writer confesses that "Tennyson's greatest beauties are untranslatable;" they are too delicate, and as M. Taine, speaking of the female characters of the poet, observes, that "I could never try to translate a single one of these portraits; every word is like a tint, curiously heightened or softened by a neighboring tint, with all the hardihood and the success of the happiest refinement. The least alteration would upset all." Far truer is another test supplied elsewhere in this article, that "the highest quality of the highest genius is to dispense with exact knowledge of what it paints or shadows forth, to grasp distant ages by intuition, like Shakspeare, or to pierce the mind's eye like Milton." This quality the writer has not shown to belong to Byron, while he denies it to Tennyson, and goes on to observe: "But when a poet habitually mixes up his individuality with extreme objects, or draws largely on his own impressions and reminiscences, the tone of his poetry will necessarily be much influenced by his commerce with the world, and as Tennyson is fond of appearing in his own person in his works, he certainly is under some disadvantage in this respect." This charge, we take it, is far more applicable to Byron than to Tennyson. Self, selfish conceits, selfish indulgences, selfish hatreds and loves, are the staple of Byron's songs, from the largest to the least. In Tennyson's greatest poems, - his "Enone and the Arthurian Epic, and in a large number of his other poems, there is "no appearing in his own person." In the "Idylls of the King," more than in any poem of Byron's, we certainly find that "highest quality of the highest genius" which dispenses with exact knowledge, as it paints and "grasps the distant ages" of a remote past, and pierces to the misty grandeur of our noblest national legends. Can this writer be serious when he tells us the voice of Tennyson is "mild as the sucking dove, when he communes with nature or rails against mankind"? He has forgotten the heart-shaking speech of King Arthur to the guilty Guinevere, when he denounces her as his "kingdom's curse and the burning reproaches he pours from a heart of fire upon his faithless "Amy" in " Locksley Hall"? Are such the utterances of a "sucking dove"? Let any one read the description of the storm in the "Holy Grail," and catch, if he can, especially in these lines, the mild utterance of the sucking dove, "Ye could not hear the waters for the blast, Though heapt in mounds and ridges all the sca." The highest place in creative art belongs, we think, to those who have best combined originality and range of imagination with felicity of execution. Of the delicacy of Mr. Tennyson's workmanship, and the felicity of his execution, there can be no question: in this respect, Byron when compared with him, or rather contrasted, is nowhere. The originality of Byron's creations, and the range of his imagination, are as "moonlight unto sunlight, as water unto wine," when compared with those of Tennyson. In the freest and highest flight of his imagination, Byron never liberates himself from the narrow range of self. No great poet had so little of imaginative power; he could not project himself into another, and every character he casts is cast in his own mould. As M. Taine writes, "They are his own sorrows, his own results, his own travels, which, hardly transformed and modified, he introduces into his verses. He does not invent, but observes; he does not create, but narrates." On the contrary, how varied in color, how multiform in shape, is the creative energy of Tennyson's imagination in all his poems! Uniform only in their artistic excellence, without iteration; wealthy in a manifold imagination, which gilds their varied sentiments; fertile in fancy in constructing, or embellishing his story with novelty of incidents, and enriching it with almost every type of character, with moods and feelings and passions of all kinds and all degrees. Again, to quote M. Taine, the first of Continental critics, Tennyson wrote in every accent, and delighted to enter into the feelings of all ages. He wrote of St. Agnes, St. Symon Stylites, Ulysses, Enone, Sir Galahad, Lady Clare, Fatima, the Sleeping Beauty. He imitated alternately Homer and Chaucer, Theocritus and Spenser, the old English poets, and the old Arabian poets. He gave life successively to the little real events of English life and the great fantastic adventures of extinguished chivalry. He was like those musicians who use their bow in the service of all masters." MY NEIGHBOR. It was, I think, Dr. Johnson who pronounced that none should write the life of a man but those who had eaten, drunk, and lived in social intercourse with him. Now, I never did so much as this, or any thing like so much, in regard to my neighbor. But then, it is not of his life that I purpose to write, but rather of his death; and certain events that happened thereupon. There was but a party-wall, a few inches thick, dividing between us; and yet we were absolute strangers, knowing nothing of each other's method of existence. "London is a bad place," wrote Joseph Andrews to Pamela; "and there is so little good-fellowship that the next-door neigh bors don't know one another." It was so with my neighbor and myself. - We were both tenants of chambers in an inn of Court let it be called Cursitor's Inn. It was a curious, outof-date, out-of-the-world sort of precinct, carrying on an exclusive and detached career, with vested interests, traditions, manners, and customs of its own. It resembled one of those inferior fortresses to be read of in history; which, overlooked or "turned" by an invading enemy, remain uncapitulated, and persevere in a defiant attitude, their guns loaded, the sentinels wakeful and alert, the inhabitants much straitened, long after the war which menaced them has altogether passed away, and peace has once more been securely re-established throughout the land. It was as a poor relation of the rich and famous inns, claiming kindred with the courts of law and equity, but scarcely having its claim allowed; for its pedigree was in a sadlytattered condition, and its title-deeds were imperfect. Lawyers inhabited it no more. Its grimy and decayed buildings were let to any who chose to occupy them - to any who would pay a sufficiently high rent for the privilege of dwelling in murky, sordid, worm-eaten premises, inconvenient, unwholesome, and barbaric in all their arrangements, and possessed of but one recommendation, - their exceeding quiet. When once you had escaped from the uproar of the neighboring highways, and taken refuge in one of the confined quadrangles of Cursitor's Inn, there you found peace, at any rate; unkept, unpicturesque, prison-like in its restrictions and seclusion, yet certainly peace. The costermonger was denied admission; the cries of itinerant dealers were forbidden; the street-musician was silenced. As to these matters, the ordinances of Cursitor's Inn were peremptory. no Let it be added that the inn was a parish in itself, and governed by its own beadle; that it contained a few Blighted trees, and a plot or two of withered grass; that it possessed a diminutive chapel, in which, at intervals, one knew, and no one cared exactly when, - a mildewed chaplain, in a crumpled surplice, read a hazy version of the liturgy; or, in a rusty cassock, muttered through a brief and perfunctory sermon, the congregation, the while, being of an almost impalpable kind; and that it boasted a hall of its own. This was a dusky, dilapidated edifice, crowned by a lantern and weathercock; and adorned over its chief door, upon a side of the building which seemed to be always in the shade, with a sun-dial of enormous scale, and the motto, underwritten in dim gold letters, of Tempori parendum. The interior was feebly lighted by foggy stained-glass windows, decked with the crests and coatsof-arms of numerous forgotten worthies presumably, in times long past, cursitors, or functionaries of some such vague quality, and in that way involved in historical connection with the inn. This hall, with whatever object it may have been founded originally, was now mainly used upon audit-days, when the treasurer of the inn sat in a kind of state to greet such tenants as were prepared, after due notice, to pay quarterly instalments of their respective rents. It was one of the traditions of Cursitor's Inn that on these occasions the disbursing tenant should be regaled with a glass of nutty sherry and a slice of clammy plumcake. Further, it was required of him that he should shake hands with the treasurer. These ceremonies duly accomplished, his liabilities and duties were over; the hall remained unoccupied, and no further tidings could be gathered concerning the treasurer, the benchers, stewards, or ancients of Cursitor's Inn, until the arrival of next quarter-day. My neighbor's door bore no inscription. I had no certain information as to his name. Occasionally, however, I had some faint tidings of him. The laundress who, in the language of the Inn, "did for "me, now and then let fall brief speech concerning him. She was known to me as Mrs. Crisp; and I feel bound to state, on her behalf, that she was a highly respectable specimen of a class that has been habitually subjected to rather an excess of disparagement and caricature. Her aspect was unattractive, and her method of dress was certainly negligent. She appeared in a bonnet of frayed and battered character, upon occasions when women generally are wont to discard such head-gear. Still her custom in this respect concerned only herself, and She was therefore entitled to the tolerant view of others. was punctual, she was honest, and she was perfectly respectful in manner. That the premises and chattels under her charge were not more scrupulously cared for, could scarce be brought in accusation against her. The bachelor rarely enlists under that dominant household flag, the duster. He does not object to litter, and finds a sort of comfort in confusion. He discovers advantages in disorder that are not to be perceived by the eyes of married folk. He is slow to appreciate the virtue of knocking dust off one object in order that, after existing for a while as a choking cloud, it may resolutely resettle upon another. In short, Mrs. Crisp's failures and shortcomings in this regard were with the connivance and sanction of her employer. She accomplished sufficiently, all that was required of her. What laundress, what woman, could do more? But she gossiped. She had her sex's love of fluent utterance. She was not my neighbor's laundress; but she was prone to interchange news with the professional sisters, and so gathered some vague knowledge of him-soiled, perhaps, and deteriorated in value, like a coin of the realm, from excess of traffic and circulation. The laundresses of Cursitor's Inn were accustomed to assemble of mornings in the neighborhood of the pump, as though it had been a market-place, and they had wares to vend or buy. With water we were ill supplied in the Inn: it was necessary to bring it from a distance, like beer, in jugs and cans. the time our buildings were first constructed, washing was, no doubt, considered as one of the luxuries and superfluities of life, and therefore easily to be dispensed with; while, for drinking purposes, other and more potent founts than the pump were by preference resorted to. The laundresses met to draw water: they tarried to tattle. Their congregation was as a humble or dame school for scandal. At Items of floating intelligence relative to the Inn, its denizens and doings, were from time to time urged in my direction by the breath of Mrs. Crisp. Her discourse did not need the stimulus of interrogation. I had but to listen, and I did that as little as I could; retreating behind my newspaper, or affecting that my attention was otherwise engaged. Still Mrs. Crisp would talk. I soon found that in regard to my neighbor Mrs. Crisp had very little to disclose that was at all of a trustworthy nature. As to the names of people and places, I had always known her to be inaccurate. Her speech was fully marked by that want of preciseness which so usually attends volubility. She alluded to my neighbor now as Mr. Clithero, now as Mr. Pitherick; sometimes as Mr. Getteridge, and anon as Mr. Chitterling. It occasioned me no surprise to find that his name when I ultimately came to know it beyond question was none of these. He was really called Nathan George Clayborne. The truth came to me at last in this wise. The beadle of the Inn called upon me one morning clothed in his full uniform snuff-color turned up with saffron- and tendered me a slip of blue, official-looking paper. As usual with him, there was a bright varnish of perspiration spread over his rubicund complexion, and his speech was husky almost to unintelligibility. But on this occasion his hands shook more than ordinarily, and there was an unaccustomed excitement in his glance. He muttered that the paper was to be delivered to me with Somebody's compliments, I have not the least idea whose, and that Somebody-name still unknown would be exceedingly obliged if I would give early attention to it. He then shuffled away with an unsteady gait. Of course I examined the beadle's document. It was a summons to attend a coroner's inquest. I was charged personally to appear at the hall of Cursitor's Inn upon a stated day, then and there to inquire on her Majesty's behalf, touching the death of Nathan George Clayborne, and further to do and execute such other matters and things as should then and there be given me in charge, and not to depart without leave. "Hereof fail not, at your peril," said the slip of paper; which, in addition, informed me that jurymen not attending pursuant to summons were liable to a penalty of forty shillings. So my neighbor was dead, and I was bound, under a penalty, to attend the inquest upon his remains. At last, then, but in a very grim sort of way, I was to make his acquaint ance. Had I ever seen him? I began to ask myself. Did I know him even by sight? Certainly we had been neighbors for some years, and occasionally, ascending or descending our dimly-lighted staircase, I had met on the way some one who, no doubt, was Mr. Clayborne. But we had never interchanged a word. We had just paused a moment, or moved aside, to allow each other to pass, and there was an end of the matter. As to what manner of man he was, I had never noted particularly, and had little idea. I retained an impression, however, that he was portly of figure he seemed to need more space on the staircase than I did - and somewhat advanced in years. He was high and round-shouldered, I thought I recollected; deliberate in his movements, with a cautious, heavy tread. As to his face and features, I was quite without knowledge. The party-wall that divided us was not too thick, and I had often heard him moving to and fro in his rooms: not noisily, for he was one of the quietest of men; very different in that respect to certain other of my neighbors, who were prone to uproar upon occasion, who entertain turbulent company, and indulged in efforts of song and dance of a violent kind. Still, I could hear him cough, or draw a cork, or throw coals upon his fire in the winter-time. The sound of voices conversing in his apartments had never been audible to me. He led a solitary life. So far as I knew, no one ever called upon him. I never remembered to have seen or heard the postman delivering letters to him. And his black, battered, nameless door was always fast closed. He was never "at home" to any one; and no one was troubled or disappointed thereat, or knew, or cared a bit about it. And now we were to "sit upon " his body. That was the accepted phrase. "Sorry to trouble you," said the treasurer; "but you see we're bound to do it. Never did such a thing happen before in the Inn: not within my experience. But it won't take long; a mere matter of form. Much obliged to you for coming. We're expecting the coroner every moment. Take a chair." His manner combined apology with cheerfulness. He was a little excited by the occasion; but viewed it as rather of a bracing and exhilarating tendency, by reason perhaps of its novelty. We were assembled in the gloomy yet picturesque hall of the inn, waiting for the coroner, detained, it was whispered, by a shocking case of suicide on Saffron Hill, there being just a doubt as to whether it wasn't rather a matter of murder. The beadle was understood to have had some trouble in collecting a quorum of us; and now, overcome by his exertions, he was sitting on the steps of the hall, dabbing his purple countenance with a red cotton handkerchief. Until the proper officer arrived, we had nothing to do but to thrust our hands in our pockets and stare at each other, with an inclination, such as an unusual situation often engenders, to strike up sudden friendship. For, though all dwellers in the inn, we were, for the most part, unacquainted with each other. It struck me that we were not a very impressive or respectable looking congregation. We resembled as much a gang of conspirators awaiting trial and sentence, as an impartial and responsible jury assembled to try or to inquire. One of our number, if not more than one, had, I think, been up all night. I especially noted a gentleman of jaded and vacuous aspect, very incomplete and dishevelled as to his toilet. I have seen men of his look and expression attending public executions, when the law permitted such, after passing a wakeful and potulent night in waiting for the dreadful spectacle. His presence was secured to complete our number, under extreme pressure on the part of the beadle. He had a suspicion, I fancy, that he was himself to be the subject of some judicial process. Possibly he deserved so to be. Strange to say, he initiated a sort of acquaintanceship with me. He nodded to me in the most friendly manner. Then he advanced, and said hoarsely: "Don't the inn stand sherry on these occasions?" Could he have imagined that he was there to pay his rent? "Your waistcoat's all buttoned wrong," I took leave to whisper; "and the bow of your necktie's under your ear." “Under my ear, is it? O Lord!" he said with a strange shudder. Then the coroner entered abruptly, and we all drew our chairs to a long table covered with green baize, and well supplied with articles of stationery. 66 Sorry to be late, gentlemen," said the coroner. "Couldn't help it. Where's the beadle? Swear these gentlemen." We were duly sworn, the beadle much perplexed as to the proper form of oath. I noticed that the Testament was quite a new one. The Inn had evidently found it necessary to send out and purchase the same, not discovering such a volume in its library. We were rather an incoherent and inert body; but the briskness and decision of the coroner, who seemed versed even to callousness in the peculiar duties of his office, soon endowed us with a certain form and a measure of vitality. "It's a simple matter, gentlemen, I take it," he said; "but a case of sudden death like this we're bound to in quire into. You've got your witnesses in attendance, beadle? Now, who identifies the body? Any relative of the deceased present?" There was no relative of the deceased present. So far as could be then ascertained, he had no relatives; but a gentleman who described himself as the solicitor of the dead man, stepped forward. Having been sworn, he stated that he had seen the body, and identified it as that of Mr. Nathan George Clayborne. The solicitor had observed mention in the newspapers of the death in the inn, and had at once put himself in communication with the proper authorities. Mr. Clayborne had been for many years a client of his. He had been in the habit of seeing the deceased regularly once a month or so for a long time past, in relation to certain house-property and money advanced on mortgage. But the solicitor knew nothing of Mr. Clayborne's habits or private life, of his origin, family, or connections, and could give no information as to the cause of his death or the circumstances attending that event. He had last seen Mr. Clayborne some ten days since, when he appeared to be enjoying his usual health. Nothing in his manner at that time called for remark. "That will do so far," said the coroner. the laundress." "Now swear The oath was then administered to Hannah Baker, a little old woman, shabbily dressed, and armed with a large door-key. She appeared disposed to use that instrument as a weapon of offence, should the occasion so require, and viewed our proceedings rather acrimoniously. I had overheard her previously communicate to the beadle that she had "no opinion" of inquests, and demanded why all this "rubbish"-meaning the jury should be worrying about her poor dear gentleman. In reply to the coroner's interrogations, she deposed: Yes; her name was Hannah Baker. She was a widow woman. She had been a laundress in the inn for long years, as many knew, and could swear to, if necessary. She was Mr. Clayborne's laundress, and had been so ever since he first came to the inn. Couldn't say when that was, only it was a time ago now. She defied any one to say a word against her char |