guidance of one who is willing to be his friend to-night, even at the expense of honour and at the instigation of a revengeful spirit." Fairfax, who scarcely knew whether he ought not to look upon his prisoner as a madman, paused ere he made any reply. However, as the chances, judging from the resistance which the garrison had already made, were so many against his being able to take the place by force of arms, he determined, as a last resource, to embrace the opportunity which had so unexpectedly offered itself, be the consequences what they might. "Be it so," was the answer; "he whom ye address is always ready; lead on, then ;-but hearken, haughty Cavalier, should you belie your promise, your life shall be the forfeit for the deception." "Had I been the object of fear," replied Sele, "I should not now be in Fairfax's tent. A truce, then, to your threatenings. Yet think not that I betray the royal cause thus basely. Hear first the terms: nay, frown not; I'll not be frightened from my purpose by the frowns of any man; and unless my two conditions are agreed to, not all your threats shall make me even now turn traitor. My life is in your hands, and you may take it instantly; but that is all you have within your power with me. Hear me, then, I ask but for the life and freedom of the garrison; and that the few females, one of whom is dearer to me than life, shall be secure from the insults of your rebel troops. On thego conditions only do I become your guide." "Fairfax will pledge his word," was the reply, "that life and freedom shall be allowed all at present within the castle walls; and as for women, the soldiers of the Parliament, rebel or not, are not the licentious Cavaliers of Charles, who need be under no anxiety for the safety of their courtezans. We come to fight with men, and not to make war upon women. Now, are you satisfied?" Sele expressed himself in the affirmative, and was entrusted with the guidance of the General and a chosen body of men towards the very opening whence he himself had effected his escape. When morning dawned, the royal standard of the unfortunate Charles floated not, as heretofore, above the lofty battlements of the castle; and those who had defended it so stoutly had either fallen sword in hand, or had departed to some other stronghold that was still enabled to keep on high the well-known ensign of fast-falling royalty. One only of the former garrison remained; and he, with beating heart and anxious look, had twice already explored the intricacies of each apartment which the castle contained, in search of the object of his every hope and fear-but all in vain; his eye fell not on the lovely form of Esther Milton. Still, however, coping with the grim fiend Despair, he was in the act of doing so for the third time, bethinking him of a chamber of remarkable secrecy, which he had not searched, when he was summoned by Fairfax into his presence. Walter Sele now considered himself dissolved from all bond with the rebels, and refused to obey the citation, thus rousing the wrath of the General, and Sele is dragged before the Council of Roundheads. Here, for an instant forgetting his private wrongs, and his late revengeful act of treason, he stood before the stern tribunal with such a noble loyalty, and such a wonted majestic mien, as greatly moved the arbitrary bench for a few brief seconds. But a merciless decision had been formed, and Fairfax at length spoke after this hope-destroying manner :-" Now, then, proud Cavalier, (said he,) has not the promise which I made been kept? Hath either maid or courtezan been violated? The life and freedom of the garrison have also been granted. Re member, when my word was pledged to this, thou wast not one among them!Therefore I owe thee nothing; and it was to gratify thy own revenge, and not from a proper conviction of the goodness of our cause, that thou hast betrayed thy party. While, therefore, I am thankful for the treason, I hate the traitor. Take thou a traitor's just reward.” A few minutes have only elapsed, when the fatal word of command has sped and the flash of a dozen firelocks tells that Walter Sele has been pierced by as many bullets. A few minutes more and the soldiers are in the act of interring all that once remains of the once brave but ill-fated Cavalier-when they are disturbed in their work by the unlooked-for appearance of a maiden, who, rushing eagerly forward, flings herself upon the lifeless body as it lies upon the green sward, in the dress it wore while living; and there she clings, with a vehemence that requireth force to unloosen the grasp, her cry ever and anon being, "I have found my Walter !—I have found my Walter!" Alas! poor maid, thou hast found thy lover, but thou hast also lost thy reason! Such, reader, was one of the tragical episodes of the Great Rebellion, where General Fairfax figured as a principal character, and where he acted his part with less of that gallant generosity, or forbearance with the weaknesses of humanity, than have other commanders, whose military fame is at least as enviable. HENRY VIII. once sent an offer of his hand to the Princess of Parma, who returned for answer, that she was greatly obliged to the king for his compliment and that if she had two heads, one of them should have been at his service; but as she had only one she could not spare it. Perhaps the princess had read his uxorious career. Henry, as speaker : Three Kates, two Nans, and one sweet Jane, I wedded, From two I got divorced, two I beheaded, One died in child-bed, and one me survives. THE DESOLATE HEART. BEAUTY beams in the blushing flower, In earth and sky and sea, In every sight and every sound, Is joy or melody. But there is nothing in the sky To bid my heart rejoice; No balm in the breeze that hurries by, Nothing so beautiful and bright My soul from gloom to win- DIGNUM, AND HIS TIMES. THE luminous and voluminous Gibbon, in his Memoirs, "hesitates, from an apprehension of ridicule, in detailing the particulars of his early love." My attachment to Charles Dignum excites not any such bashfulness. "Come along with me, young gentleman, to Drury lane Theatre this evening," said my French and Italian tutor," and I will shew you what acting is." It was Garrick's Theatre, and Dignum played Captain Sightly, in Bickerstaff's afterpiece, "The Romp." We entered the house at the pit-door, in Catherine street, under what was then the Rose Tavern. I have a distinct recollection of the sign of that interesting flower, with the motto "Sub Rosa" beneath it. The play, if I recollect rightly, was "The Gamester;" an actor, named John Kemble, performed Beverly, and one Mrs. Siddons personated the Gamester's wife. The house was indifferent, until half price, when the attraction of Captain Sightly began to create an overflow. My tutor and I took our places about the centre of the pit, and a little boy on my left was seated upon a thick quarto volume, to enable him to see the buckles of the actors. John Palmer wore a pair of diamond ones, that were worth looking at, not to mention his brown hair-powder and black satin breeches. When the little boy stood on his feet, to rest himself by a change of position, between the second and third acts, I opened his printed prop, and found it to be a family Bible. The little boy's father, who sat beside him, observed a look of surprise in my countenance at finding such a book in such a place, and told me that he was acquainted with Billings, the pit-cheque taker, who allowed him to deposit the volume at the foot of his desk. "I come here pretty frequently," said the little boy's father," and always bring either Charles or Mary with me; there is no book in my possession that answers their purpose but this." This happened five and fifty years ago: I hope the distribution societies have since "ordered these things better." The green curtain now rose majestically to exhibit the opening scene of Bickerstaff's farce. Let the reader fancy a grocer's shop with the glass windows in the back scene, looking as towards the street; an actress named Jordan played Priscilla Tomboy, and sat upon a stool working at her needle and singing "Hail London, noblest mart on earth," in chorus with the shopmen : Young Cockney, the son of the head of the firm, "In love with her but not beloved in return," was acted by a man named Dodd-not habited like the modern mind-improving race, but dressed in brown powder, a scarlet coat, black satin shorts, blue silk stockings, and pasto knee and shoe buckles, as a shopman should be. Old Cockney was acted by Fawcett, the father of the manager of Covent Garden Theatre; and Barnacle, the money-saving uncle, was per formed by a man whose name, I think, was Suett. The grand feature of the piece, Captain Sightly, (the feature I may say, speaking as a copyist, "upon which the whole question hinged,") fell to the lot of Dignum. When he entered you might have heard a pin drop. Everybody heard everybody's watch tick. Priscilla Tomboy, to avoid marrying a man she detests, determines on an elopement with the captain. She thus lyrically expresses her aversion to her friend Penelope, Young Cockney's sister: "I'm sick when I think of your brother; The phrase "I'm sick," was well calculated to express the feelings of a highspirited young woman sent home in a merchantman from Jamaica to Gracechurch street, for polite education; and the determination subsequently ex. pressed to cause "Chaos to come again," by a non-continuation of the human species, in the event therein predicated, could only drop from the pen of a true poet. I must own that I am sufficiently a "laudator temporis deti," to dislike the modern mode of dressing military men on the stage in overalls, boots and spurs. It betokens a disrespect to the audience. Dignum knew better. Captain Sightly is a gentleman by profession: he is a captain in the trainbands, occasionally exercising in the Artillery-ground, at the back of Moor place, which now forms the west side of Finsbury square, and should therefore not hide his leg under a bushel. Dignum dressed the character in a scarlet coat, cocked hat, white kerseymere waistcoat and breeches, and blue silk stockings and shoes, the latter twain of which habiliments shewed his leg and foot to great advantage, and to the proportionate detriment of John Palmer. Priscilla meets her lover by appointment at the eastern corner of St. Paul's Churchyard, near a trunk-maker's, whose hammering, I hope and trust, did not disturb the young gentlemen in their study of the bonas literas, five doors lower down on the coach side of that majestic cathedral. Young Cockney comes pop upon the lovers: Miss La Blonde, a French milliner, Old Cockney, Barnacle, and Penelope, happen to drop in at the time, and a sestetto is the consequence. Let me indulge myself in an extract. PRISCILLA. They may lock me up in prison- YOUNG C. Her'n the fault is more than his'n. PENELOPE. Uncle, brother, pray withdraw. PRISCILLA (to YOUNG c.) YOUNG C. What! you threaten? PRISCILLA. Captain, draw your sword and swear! CAPTAIN S. (drawing). 'S blood and thunder! MISS LA BLONDE. YOUNG C. Let him touch me if he dare! All the Captain Sightly's that I have seen, since Dignum, when they exclaim " 'S blood and thunder!" assume a look of real rage. Dignum only smiled and half drew his sword from the scabbard. He felt the situation as described by the poet to be one of peculiar delicacy: it was not for him to assassinate the son of his mistress's guardian: he was only to appear in earnest. Indeed, Young Cockney's rejoinder, "Let him touch me if he dare!" shews that he did not conceive himself to be in any very imminent peril. I owe my introduction to our great vocalist to a happy chance. I sat next to him at an anniversary dinner of the Deaf and Dumb. Hodgson, the jocular Smithfield apothecary, sat on his other side. "Sit higher," Diggy, exclaimed the son of Galen, giving him at the same time a shove which drove him with gentle violence against the writer of this memoir. "Ah! now, my dear Mr. Daub," exclaimed our hero, (he had seen my name written upon a card on my soup-plate,)" I really beg your pardon : 'pon my life I do-I don't know." It |