little more decency of manners, exactly the same feelings displayed among persons reckoned first-rate as to abilities, rank, and education, but who did not love one another. So true it is, that it is the exterior only that makes the difference between man and man.*

The rest of the conversation at the Ordinary having been all in the same strain (and I have given a sufficient specimen of it), I will content myself with stating its result. The traveller from Reading, who brought the account of Firebrass, having sided with Smooth, who was far from succumbing, the battle might have been a drawn one; but the apothecary and bailiff throwing their weight into the scale of Mr. Simcox, that gentleman finally triumphed; and it was agreed by the majority, that the patriotic doctor deserved hanging as much, if not more, than the blacksmith, or even Handcock himself.

The subject was not pleasant to me, and that I may not revert to it again, I may as well here relate the

* Mr. Clifford here, perhaps, might have successfully transcribed from his master, Fielding:

"The great are deceived if they imagine they have appropriated ambition and vanity to themselves. These noble qualities flourish as notably in a country church, or church-yard, as in the drawingroom, or the closet. Schemes have indeed been laid in the vestry, which would hardly disgrace the Conclave. Here is a ministry; and here an opposition; here are plots, parties, and factions, equal to those which are to be found in courts.

"Nor are the women here less practised in the highest feminine arts than their fair superiors in quality and fortune. Here are prudes and coquets, dressing and ogling, falsehood, envy, malice, scandal; in short, every thing which is common to the most splendid assembly, or politest circle."-Tom Jones.

close of the story, for the assizes were held within a fortnight of this time. At these Handcock was tried, and exclusive of the evidence of his accomplice, the notes of the bank found in his pack having been proved not to have been issued on the night of the burglary, he was found guilty, and executed for the felony; and Mr. Smooth had the mortification of hearing that the philosopher of the law of nature, being tried and convicted of a gross misdemeanour for the opinion he had given, and which it was proved had actually instigated the robbery, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in the gaol of Dorchester, where he died of a fever, brought on by virtuous indignation -a martyr to the tyranny of the laws and the ingratitude of his country.

Not the least affecting part of the history relates, however, to the poor girl of the West Country Barge, all my fears for whom, occasioned by her intimacy with the wretched Handcock, were well founded. His flatteries had been too seductive; she listened to them with a result fatal to her innocence and peace; and his fate so affected her, that a miscarriage caused her death within a month after his execution.

When Le Sage wrote Gil Blas, how little did he contemplate such a consequence from his fascinating work!

CHAPTER XIX.

MORE TALES OF MY LANDLORD.-I MEET WITH A LADY, WHO REMINDS ME TOO MUCH OF ANOTHER. -CONVERSATION WITH A STRANGER, ON NATURE AND ART. THE LANDLORD'S ACCOUNT OF HIM.

One touch of nature makes the whole world of kin.

SHAKSPEARE.-Troilus & Cressida.

Your accent is something finer than you could purchase in so re

moved a dwelling.

As You Like It.

The moated grange.

At that place call upon me.

Measure for Measure.

I STAID with my Oakingham landlord two days longer, pleased with his temper and his conversation, both which, if not refined, were instructive. He was full of observation, to which he was inclined by nature ; but it had been much sharpened by his lot in life, from the opportunities it gave him of surveying, in his guests, the different characters of men. His shrewd remarks, and the anecdotes he told me of different travellers who used his house, first gave me the idea that if a man wished to get acquainted with his fellowmen, he could not do it better than in the shape of an innkeeper.

This impression was, in after-life, confirmed to me by the authority of no less than the shrewd and observing Paley, a great philosopher in that way; who did not scruple to say,-in his broad Cumberland dialect, which always added so much emphasis to the sagacity of his remarks,—that if he wished to " stoody the warld, it should be by keeping a pooblic-hoose by the waay saide."

My friend Gayford had not, perhaps, this motive when he set up the Royal Oak; but becoming its landlord, he could not help indulging his vein, for which it gave such fine play. As he had, I know not why (except that he found I liked to hear him talk), taken a liking to me, we gossipped together frequently at the door of his inn, on a bench which, in fine weather, invited many a passenger to take a pint, and served commodiously for these conferences.

He naturally talked of the gentry who used his house, in whom, he observed, there were vast differences, to be sure," which I always, however," said he, "could find out in the twinkle of an eye. For I had not been an innkeeper twelve months, before I found I could always discover real sterling from Brummagem that is to say, the real quality from them as apes them, and that, even though the Brummagems be the richest. By-the-bye, here comes one of them up the street; I know it by the scarlet and gold livery of the outrider, which they have no more right to than I have, for it belongs to the prince. But they are coming to change horses, so I must be stirring." At which, ringing loudly the ostler's bell, he pre

pared himself for the most obsequious bows, which he gave plentifully to two persons in rich travelling dresses in the inside of the carriage, when it stopped.

They were a gentleman and lady; the one a most meek and insignificant-looking being, for a male creature; the other a woman of prodigious energy, who scolded both landlord and ostler with vociferation, for having given them a horse that went lame, the last time she changed-for I observed she did not say we.

The prudent Gayford bowed an excuse, which seemed a reasonable one, for he said the horse was sound at starting, but picked up a nail on the road, and had been, much to his loss, lame ever since. This, however, did not pacify the lady, nor apparently the gentleman, who, putting his little head under his wife's arm, so as to reach the window, said, as loud as a very tremulous voice would permit, "Indeed, Mr. Gayford, this was very bad usage, and Lady FitzJohn and I take it very ill."

Gayford had nothing for it but to bow again, and the carriage drove off.

After he had looked after them till they were out of sight, sitting down again, he observed, "Now that's a sample of what I was a-saying. That's true Brummagem. It's well that that gentleman was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, for he never would have got his meat else."

"Who are these Fitz-Johns ?" asked I.

"Who, indeed!" answered he. "They are no more Fitz-Johns than you. And yet they are, too,