CHAPTER IV.

MR. MEREDITH'S gloomy forebodings were too soon realized. The newly appointed Rector, energetic in his habits, and in the prime of his years, required no assistance in the care of his new parish-and in six weeks, the time now recognized as sufficient for any arrangements a displaced curate can have to make, being a few days longer than the warning granted to a dishonest footman or a drunken cook-in six weeks Henry Meredith and his wife were

on their road to London, where they established themselves in respectable lodgings, until he should succeed in obtaining some appointment. They were friendless and well nigh moneyless; but they were rich in affection and in hope, the ardour of which was as yet unchilled by worldly experience. Though too well acquainted with the realities of life to give a thought to the exploded fable of London's golden pavement, Meredith, conscious of ability, of talent, of industry, did yet hope that in the metropolis he should find a field for his exertions to which in a secluded country place he could hardly look. He knew not that talent tenfold more original and elevated than his is hidden, lost, buried irrecoverably there, merely for want of that opening which an influential introduction may command, or a happy accident give, but without which, genius is unavailing, and labour is vain. Poets may talk of many a "mute inglorious Milton" "village Hampden" lost in the obscurity

" or

of humble life, but it is probable that their whole aggregate might be outnumbered by those who, with abilities to elevate their species, and ennoble themselves, and in the great arena of talent, London, have sunk unappreciated, unknown, the victims of disappointment and neglect, merely for want of an opening in the vast maze of literary life through which they might work their own way. While, vice versa, cleverness of a second-rate order, seen in the dazzling rays of influence and position, will shine perhaps with a transient, but with a very cheering light amid the bright constellation of literary talent. Just as the commonest garden flower if well nurtured in a rich soil, having gentle yet copious irrigation, a sheltered aspect, a western sun, will throw out new petals, become enriched in colour, enlarged in size, until to the common eye it bears little or no analogy to the simple primrose or polyanthus it once professed to be; whilst a flower naturally the most splendid and gorgeous, re

moved from its choice garden bed, and left neglected in a cold unsheltered soil, will inevitably decline in colour, and dwindle in size, until it be passed carelessly by as not worth notice.

Perhaps no where is literary talent, when it has gained high suffrages, more honourably treated than in London; it becomes the fashion: but nowhere are people more chary in lending a helping hand to unknown merit and nowhere perhaps, is more fully displayed, than in the mass of London lighter literature, the potency of a name, or, in other words, of fashion, to sanctify inanity and mediocrity.

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Sir," said a well-known London publisher only the other day, to the author and offerer of a manuscript work-one, too, of sterling excellence, as the man of types and influence himself acknowledged -“sir, if an angel from Heaven were to come down, and write a book, I should have no chance of selling it, unless a fa

vourite name were placed on the title page."

Less explanation than the foregoing might, perhaps, have sufficed to show that Meredith, poor, inexperienced, retiring, and utterly unknown, could have little chance of improving his means by his literary labours, in the wide wilderness of London. Fortunately, he did not know this; and his inexperience and his hopes kept him buoyant for a long time. Moreover, had his own opinion of his literary qualifications been much less modest than it was, he had no intention of rendering them otherwise than subservient to his professional avocations. He hoped to obtain a curacy, but inexperienced as he was, he yet knew well that a curate's stipend could not suffice, with the strictest economy, to maintain him and his wife in decent respectability in London, and he hoped that by the most sedulous appropriation of his leisure hours to literature, he might at least add a sufficient number of