particular class to which he might belong. Fortunately for their infant contract, a knock at the door called off the attention of the parties. The Persian gentleman with the beard, not perceiving the whereabout of Cheek, said in good Petticoat-lane English, "Mister Cox, here's Michael Hangelo in the passage." "Show him in," said Cox. But it is only due to Michael Angelo that he should enter with a new Chapter. CHAPTER III. Cheek, who had somewhere heard the name, but knew not the precise species of creature to which it was attached, cast his eyes curiously towards the door for Michael Angelo. He saw nobody, but was startled by a sound proceeding as at first he thought from under the carpet. He looked down, and saw upon the floor something nearly three feet high; a figure that seemed as if originally formed of full dimensions, but crushed within a mould to its present dwarf deformity. There was that flesh and bone about him, that if "long drawn out," would have lengthened into a symmetrical lifeguardsman. In a word, he was a man shut in like an opera-glass. He was habited in a faded grass green coat, with buttons up to the shoulders-buttons robbed of their gold in the struggle through life; a blue velvet waistcoat, its glory somewhat obscured; drab breeches and speckled worsted stockings; in one hand he held a copper-mounted cane-with the other, he waved a hat, not unlike a decapitated sugarloaf, bowing as though he bent before the assembled human race. "Well, sir, I hope we have arranged this matter, so as to spare your professional feelings." Thus spoke Cox; and Michael Angelo, with the intense gratitude of a man of genius, pressed his hat to his bosom, slid his legs backwards and forwards, and bowed. "I should have been sorry to see the figures put up to public auction." "Sir," exclaimed Michael Angelo, and his small voice rang as though it came through a glass tube"'twould have been an everlasting blot upon the age. What! Newton going by the hammer! Ravaillac knocked down! Jack Shepherd bid for! To have had that glorious constellation of art scattered to the four winds of heaven! Napoleon, per haps, bought by the Court of Petersburg-Voltaire gone to the PopeJoan of Arc possessed by the Grand Turk, and, though I say it, all my beautiful murderers purchased by the managers of Drury Lane and Covent Garden!" The tears came into the eyes of the speaker at the bare thought of such desecration. "This gentleman," and Cox introduced Cheek, who standing up, and placing his hat before the patch, received the homage of Michael-"this gentleman, with a rare feeling towards the arts, has consented to purchase the whole collection." "In the name of every artist in Europe-in the name of the mighty dead, sir, permit me, a humble labourer in the immortal fields of grace and beauty, to thank you for à devotion of which, I am sorry to say, the present time affords so tew examples. No, sir; we are a mo ney-scraping generation, and, as I often say to Josephine, my wife, sir, are deaf and blind to the emanations of the soft and lovely. Mr Cheek, what now, flattery apart;" and Michael took out a horn snuff-box, aud tapping the lid, continued his question- what now do you really think of my twins?" "I have not the pleasure, sir, of knowing any of your family," replied Cheek. "Ha! ha! I should have told you," said Cox, " that this gentleman, Mr Michael Angelo Pops, is the artist to the collection." Cheek bowed, and Pops, full of himself, continued,-" I am not vain, Mr Cheek; no, I trust I am as free from that vice as any R. A. of the lot; by the way, sir, it's sometimes lucky to be a stone-mason, isn't it; but can the whole Academy match my twins? And yet they rob me, rob me, every year." "Rob you!" cried Cheek," and have you no redress?" "No, sir, no; they change the material; I work in wax-and they commit the felony in stone. Did you ever see my Pitt? Well, sir, I don't like to mention names; but if I hav'n't been shamefully copied; however, I am used to these things; that makes the third prime minister stolen from me. Well, it can't be helped; but if I'd stuck to bronze, and never fallen upon wax,"-and Pops took half a handful of rappee to drive away reflection; still he returned to his injuries, exclaiming, with the look of a Diogenes-" Ha, sir! genius is nothing-wisdom is nothing worth is nothing in this world, it's the material makes the mau! A Phidias in wax isn't worth a-but, no, I won't mention names -in free-stone. Ha! it's a great curse, Mr Cheek, to be born with a sense of the beautiful; I who might have made a fortune as a tallowchandler may starve upon wax." "Well, Mr Pops, let us hope for better justice as the world grows wiser under the direction of Mr Cheek." "I can see, sir, a man who knows life; now, the late proprietor, a very worthy person, was too much for abstract principles to give fair play to the show." "What do you mean by abstract principles?" asked Cheek with the humility of a scholar. "Why, sir, he was for giving a crowd of folks out of Greek history, and didn't pay sufficient attention to our own Newgate Calendar. He'd spare no money to get up a Cæsar, toga and all, and yet grudge the expense of a journey to Kingston to get the face of the first house breaker of his day-that's what I call abstract principles, sir. The present wax-seeing people, eir, require excitement; their bowels are only to be come at through blood. Bless your heart, sir, my figure of Mrs Brownrigg brings showers of shillings (to be sure she wears her original nightcap), while the Venus de Medicis takes never a farthing. No, sir, no; no man who shows wax-work should indulge in abstract principles." "There's nothing stirring of late, is there, Mr Pops? No new child with two heads-no piebald girl ?" asked Cox. "No, sir, no; Nature has been plaguy dull and monotonous of late; there was a talk of a birth in high life of a little boy with horns like an elk; but I'm afraid, sir, 'tisn't true. When will Mr Cheek take possession?" "Immediately," replied Cox."Immediately," responded Cheek. "I need not say, Mr Pop3, that we shall-I mean, that Mr Cheek will be most happy to retain your eminent services as artist to the exhibition," observed Cox; and Michael Angelo made a bow, which reduced his height to something below that of a buttock of beef. "Shall I have the honour of accompanying Mr Cheek? I have only to call in Parker's Lane to order sup. per of Josephine-poor thing, she's not very well-by the way, Aaron," and the artist turned round upon the Persian with the beard-on the sixty-ninth son of the Shah Abbas, who happened to unceremoniously open the door; "by the way, Aaron, that bit of rhubarb I bought of you on Thursday in Shoreditch, turned out none of the best." "Rhubarb!" said Cheek, looking knowingly at Cox, who raised his shoulders, sighed, smiled, and said, "Ha! Mr Cheek, the exile is sometimes reduced to melancholy shifts!" Leaving Cheek to ponder on this sorrowful truth, Cox turned up the room, and Michael Angelo proceed. ed to escort the new proprietor to Parker's Lane. "You'll not take a coach ?" asked Pops, promising himself that luxury. Cheek, thrusting his two hands into his pockets, replied with peculiar decision, "No!" It was about five o'clock on a sultry afternoon in July, when Cheek arrived at the mansion of Pops in Parker's Lane. There were outward signs of the epicurean habits of the dwellers within. The door-way, strewn with pea-shells, tempted a frail sow from her proper path, the road, to dispute possession of the prize with about twenty children, who swarmed about the step, thick as bees at the mouth of a hive. Pops, who fairly disappeared among the crowd of bantlings, led the way, directing Cheek by his voice. "Never mind Betsy, she's gentle as a rabbit," said Pops, as Cheek deferen correcting auspices of Mrs Pops. Both ladies, their backs turned to him, and the pupil following the action of the preceptress, who, with the edge of her right hand, continued to cut a perpendicular line, and faithfully in the same place, exclaimed syllable for syllable MRS POPS. "Wh-e-re I w.will 1-1-ay me down, and so-oftly mo-ourn.' " MISS BOSS. "Where I will lay me down, and softly mourn.' MRS POPS. "B-b-ut nev-er clo-o-se my e-eyes ti-ill you re-turn." tially drew back from the mountain of living pork stopping the door; at length in the passage, he was about to mount the stairs, when a brindled bull-bitch, whose appearance gave the naturalist a hope that the breed was not likely to be extinct, lying at the bottom, raised her head as Cheek raised his foot-rattled a growl, exhibited two rows of teeth in splendid preservation, and her eye, kindling like a live coal, threatened sudden mischief. "Never mind her," said Pops," she won't bite,"-but Cheek, with a lack of faith in feminine forbearance, refused to advance. Pops leapt from the stair, and valiantly holding the animal by her two ears, enabled the pusillanimous "But never close my eyes till you reCheek to ascend. The weather was extremely hot, and as Cheek mounted from story to story, the staircase provokingly reminded him of a corkscrew, and that, by an association of ideas, suggested ale. "Another if you please," said Pops bashfully, as Cheek paused at the fourth floor: "only another," cried Pops, in a tone of encouragement. Cheek turned to renew the labour, when he was fixed upon the first stair by the voice, as he considered, of a man with a confirmed cold, exclaiming— turn!" MISS BOSS. At the word "return," Mrs Pops, with handkerchief in right hand, made the "cut six," and with the vigour of a dragoon, at the same instant swinging round to "exit," with a dignity that caused three tea-cups on the mantel-piece to tremble, and brought down sundry bits of broken ceiling. In this peculiar action— and it was the distinguishing grace of all the pupils of Mrs Pops-she was rigidly followed by Miss Boss, who, unhappily too near Mr Cheek, raised her hand, as grasping her kerchief, on the word "return," and twisting to the door, brought her fist into fine energy upon the nose of the unseen guest. Had Cribb played the tragedy, the hit could not have been more effectual! Cheek fell against the door, with the weight of a stunned bull, Miss Boss clasped her hands, and made so low a curtsy, Mrs Pops shrieked, and woke a child that she nearly sat upon the floorin the cradle, who answered the maternal note, and two boys, who at first shouted a laugh, added to the cry of pain and terror, their ears having been boxed by the mother for their unseemly merriment! To vary the tumult-a bantam hen, sitting in a triangular deal spittoon in the corner, quitted her eggs, and flying on the back of a chair, essayed her voice; the cry was taken up by her late companions in the street, and Parker's Lane rang like the poultry yard of the Ark. My G-god, P.pops!" were the first words, and they were spoken by Josephine. Miss Boss, the delinquent, said nothing; but still stood with clasped hands surveying the blood-dropping nose of Cheek. She had not even sufficient presence of mind to offer him her handkerchief, but suffered it to be twitched from her by her preceptress, who liberally presented it for the use of the sufferer. Cheek took it in silence, and removed from the door: Miss Boss immediately spied her opportunity, and slipping behind her victim, lifted the latch, and having flourished her hands about in mute horror to Mrs Pops, ran down the stairs like any sylph, but was immediately followed by one of the boys, despatched by the instructress. "I am so sorry," said the host, as he looked up to Cheek, swollen like a bladder "It won't be very black," said Josephine, as she descried the colour gathering about Cheek's right eye.. "The best remedy in the world," exclaimed Pops, and jumping on a chair, he withdrew a piece of raw beef from the cage of a jay suspended from a nail; and insisted upon its immediate application to the bruise. "I hope you're better, sir?" said Mrs Pops, her stutter becoming aggravated with her sympathy. "What! is she gone?" cried Pops, looking wrathfully round like a balked despot for Miss Boss. "She had an appointment, my dear-she had to meet"-and Josephine bowed and whispered-" she had to meet them in the Park, at the Theological Gardens." "She will be so sorry," said Pops, comfortingly to Isaac. "A charming girl," cried Josephine" she is about to appear in Statira-I was giving her the last lesson. I'm sure she'll be happy to present the gentleman with a ticket. Do you know, Pops, the people at the Lane' won't let her play unless she takes three pounds worth of tickets-and poor thing! she has no connexion for pit or boxes. But as I said, I'm sure, if this gentleman will accept," "Josephine, my love," cried Pops, with the air of a man who has too long deferred a sacred duty-"Josephine, my love, Mr Cheek,-the gentleman who has purchased the property.' Mrs Pops made a low curtsy to the new proprietor, and still nursing her infant-for, like Lady Macbeth, Mrs Pops at the time knew what it was "to give suck," she proceeded to congratulate, amidst the cries of her baby, played upon like a bagpipe by the right arm of its pacifying mother. I shall be home at nine to supper," said Pops; "let it be whatever you please." Josephine gave an anxious look, and timidly asked "Lamb chops and grass, Michael?" "Whatever you please," was the liberal answer; and Pops was making for the door, when his wife called him back with sudden energy. He returned to his helpmate, who commenced an admirable piece of pantomime, unfortu nately lost upon the dull perceptions of Cheek. Had he been open to the passionately eloquent appeals of action, he would have understood Mrs Pops to say-" Pops, have you no money?-you perceive that Miss Boss is gone off; and although this is the third lesson she owes us, although this is the third time I have gone through Statira with her, she has not" In the midst of the motions, the little boy despatched after Miss Boss returned sidling close to his mother, he gave her eighteen pence, and whispered, in a tone audible to Cheek,-"Now, she says she only owes you for two." Mrs Pops took the money with the dignity of a queen; and, looking graciously down upon Pops, said "Very well, loveat nine." "A treasure of a woman that, sir," said Pops as he descended the staircase-"ha! sir, such a brain-a great creature, sir-a great creature." Cheek, who was as literal as a note-of-hand, merely replied, "Very stout, indeed." "True, sir-true;" and Michael heaved a deep sigh. "Ha! sir-but for her figure she'd bring me forty pounds a-week." "That's a pity," said Cheek. "How so?" "It can't be disguised, sir; for present taste, Mrs Pops"-(if there be faith in weights and balance she was fifteen stone)-" Mrs Pops is a little too heavy for her line." "The tight rope or slack-wire ?" asked the dull and innocent Cheek. "Mr Cheek, I perceive, sir, that you are not theatrical?" said Pops, funningly. "No, sir, I am not," replied Cheek, as though defending himself from an infamous aspersion. "Is Mrs Pops?" "Some day, sir," said Pops, with an encouraging manner, "some day, sir, I'll show you the spice-box and lemon squeezers presented to her by the turners of Tunbridge Wells. Ha! sir, her Juliet was a thing to keep a man awake of nights. They talk of the Juliets and the Belvideras of the present time, put 'em altogether they wouldn't make half of Josephine.' Cheek, at this, looked like a proselyte. "No, sir, there is so much nature about her!" Cheek looked more and more convinced. "And then, sir, she is so devoted to her art. She has such an intense love for the profession, that though banished from the stage herself-and, by-the-by, I have seen women of as grand a scale, but without her soul, sir-still, she has won me to consent to ber giving lessons." "To furnish ready-made actresses ?" observed Cheek, with rare acuteness. "To bring 'em out, sir,-to teach them nature-to show them the established way of developing the passions: in fact, to put young ladies up to all sorts of stage business. None, sir-none that has ever been observed. Her pupils have all done wonders. Some Sunday, Mr Cheek, I'll walk with you in the Park, and point out their carriages to you." Bless me! she must find it very profitable," remarked Cheek, with an eye to business. ་ "She might, sir, if she was not so particular; but the fact is, if Josephine has any fault, it is that of excessive prudery. Talent, my love,' she always says to her young ladies, talent, my love, may do a great deal upon the stage, but, with London managers, there is nothing—nothing like private character.' Now, sir, you saw Miss Boss?" Cheek's lips became rigid as a horse-shoe at the question, and passing his knuckles tenderly across his nose, he replied-" Saw her, and felt her." Pops, magnanimously waiving the injuries of his neighbour, continued, with no allusion to Isaac's nose"An excellent person, sir; a good, virtuous, discreet girl; and, as my wife informs me, an admirable breeches figure." "Breeches?" exclaimed Cheek ; but further enquiry on his part was prevented by Michael Angelo, who suddenly stopt in front of a house, saying "This is the place, sir." CHAPTER IV. The artist, with a dignified waving of the hand, laconically, but proudly observed-" Here we are, sir." A great moral lesson is taught by wax-work. Pops evidently spoke as if assured of such influence. Certain we are, there is no show so worthy the twelve-pence of a philosopher. Orators and pickpockets philanthropists and cut-throats swindlers and stale arithmeticians here shoulder one another, and almost seem to plead a common right to their respective callings. Here is a king eternally opening Parliamentthere a minister looking perpetually wise-there a celebrated orator, always about to rival Demosthenes, but never doing so-there a council of potentates and warriors, met to discuss peace, with no likelihood of concluding the deliberation—and patriots always about to sacrifice themselves for the good of their country, without moving a finger for that purpose. A show of wax-work is a fine exhibition of human intentions. And yet, however cunningly fashioned, the figures appear to be |