kingdoms. While I thus argued the matter, silently, yet suspiciously, a wandering gleam of day, streaming in at the coach windows, faintly lit up a nose the penultimate peculiarities of which gave a very ominous turn to my reflections. In due time this light became more vivid; and beneath its encouraging influence, first, a pair of eyes—then two sallow, juiceless cheeks, then an upper lip, then a projecting chin; and lastly, the entire figure of the Mysterious Tailor himself, whose head, it seems, had hitherto been folded, bird-like, upon his breast, grew into atrocious distinctness, while from the depths of the creature's throat came forth the strangely-solemn whisper, "touching that little account." For this once, indignation got the better of affright. "Go where I will," I exclaimed, passionately interrupting him, "I find I cannot avoid you, you have a supernatural gift of omnipresence, but be you fiend or mortal I will now grapple with you;" and accordingly snatching at that obnoxious feature which, like the tail of the rattle-snake, had twice warned me of its master's fatal presence, I grasped it with such zealous good will, that had it been of mortal manufacture it must assuredly have come off in my hands. Aroused by the laughter of my fellow passengers, the coachman—who was just preparing to mount, after having changed horses at Dartford—abruptly opened the door, on which I as abruptly jumped out; and after paying my fare the whole way to town, and casting on the fiend a look of "inextinguishable hatred," made an instant retreat into the inn. About the middle of the next day I reached London, and without a moment's pause hurried to the lodgings of my beforementioned friend C----. Luckily he was at home, but started at the strange forlorn figure that presented itself. And well indeed he might. My eye-balls were glazed and bloody, my cheeks white as a shroud, my mouth a-jar, my lips blue and quivering. "For God's sake, C----," I began, vouchsafing no further explanation, "lend me—(I specified the sum)—or I am ruined; that infernal, inconceivable Tailor has—." C----smilingly interrupted me by an instant compliance with my demand; on which, without a moment's delay, I bounded off, breathless and semi-frantic, towards my arch fiend's Pandaemonium at High Holborn. I cannot—cannot say what I felt as I crossed over from Drury-lane towards his den, more particularly when, on entering, I beheld the demon himself behind his counter—calm, moveless, and sepulchral, as if nothing of moment had occurred; as if he were an every-day dun, or I an every-day debtor. The instant he espied me, a sardonic smile, together with that appalling dissyllable, "touching" (which I never to this day hear, see, or write without a shudder) escaped him; but before he could close his oration, I had approached, trembling with rage and reverence, towards him, and, thrusting forth the exact sum, was rushing from his presence, when he beckoned me back for a receipt. A receipt, and from him too! It was like taking a receipt for one's soul from Satan!!

The reader will doubtless conclude that, now at least, having satisfactorily settled his demands, I had done with my Tormentor for ever. This inference is in part correct. I followed up my vocation with an energy strangely contrasted with my recent indifference, was early and late in the schools, and for three months pursued this course with such ardour, that my adventures with the Mysterious Tailor, though not forgotten, were yet gradually losing their once powerful hold on my imagination. This was precisely the state of my feelings, when early one autumnal morning, just seven months from the date of my last visit to High Holborn, I chanced to be turning down Saint Giles's Church, on my way to—Hospital. I had nothing to render me more than usually pensive; no new vexations, no sudden pecuniary embarrassment; yet it so happened, that on this particular morning I felt a weight at my heart, and a cloud on my brain, for which I could in no way account. As I passed along Broad Street, I made one or two bold attempts to rally. I stared inquisitively at the different passers by, endeavouring, by a snatch at the expression of their faces, to speculate on the turn of their minds, and the nature of their occupations; I then began to whistle and hum some lively air, at the same time twirling my glove with affected unconcern; but nothing would do; every exertion I made to appear cheerful, not only found no answering sympathy from within, but even exaggerated by constrast my despondency. In this condition I reached Saint Giles's Church. A crowd was assembled at the gate opposite its entrance, and presently the long surly toll of the death-bell—that solemn and oracular memento—announced that a funeral was on the eve of taking place. The funeral halted at the entrance gate, where the coffin was taken from the hearse, and and thence borne into the chancel. This ceremony concluded, the procession again set forth towards the home appointed for the departed in a remote quarter of the church-yard. And now the interest began in reality to deepen. As the necessary preparations were making for lowering the coffin into earth, the mourners—even those who had hitherto looked unmoved—pressed gradually nearer, and with a momentary show of interest, to the grave. Such is the ennobling character of death.

The preparations were by this time concluded, and nothing now remained but the last summons of the sexton. At this juncture, while the coffin was being lowered into its resting place, my eyes, accidentally, it may be said, but in reality by some fatal instinct, fell full upon the lid, on which I instantly recognised a name, long and fearfully known to me—the name of the Mysterious Tailor of High Holborn. Oh, how many thrilling recollections did this one name recal? The rencontre in the streets of London—the scene at the masquerade—the meeting at Bologne—the storm—the shipwreck—the sinking vessel—the appearance at that moment of the man himself—the subsequent visions of mingled fever and insanity: all, all now swept across my mind, as for the last time I gazed on the remains of him who was powerless henceforth for ever. In a few minutes one little span of earth would keep down that strange form which seemed once endowed with ubiquity. That wild unearthly voice was mute; that wandering glance was fixed; a seal was set upon those lips which eternity itself could not remove. Yes, my Tormentor—my mysterious—omnipresent Tormentor was indeed gone; and in that one word, how much of vengeance was forgotten! I was roused from this reverie by the hollow sound of the clay as it fell dull and heavy on the coffin-lid. The poor sleeper beneath could not hear it, it is true; his slumber, henceforth, was sound; the full tide of human population pressing fast beside the spot where he lay buried, should never wake him more: no human sorrow should rack his breast, no dream disturb his repose; yet cold, changed, and senseless as he was, the first sound of the falling clods jarred strange and harsh upon my ear, as if it must perforce awake him. In this feverish state of mind I quitted the church-yard, and, on my road home, passed by the shop where I had first met with the deceased. It was altered—strangely altered—to my mind, revoltingly so. Its quaint antique character, its dingy spectral look were gone, and there was even a studied air of cheerfulness about it, as if the present proprietor were anxious to obliterate every association, however slight, that might possibly remind him of the past. The former owner had but just passed out, his ashes were scarcely cold, and already his name was on the wane. Yet this is human nature. So trifling, in fact, is the gap caused by our absence in society, that there needs no patriotic Curtius to leap into it; it closes without a miracle the instant it is made, and none but a disinterested Undertaker knows or cares for whom tolls our passing bell.

Monthly Magazine.

SPIRIT OF THE