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A PORTRAIT.

TH

HE clock strikes one, and he is here: See, as he comes he wears a smile : He takes his own accustomed chair, And nods gay greetings all the while. I know his friends: they are not fast, But neither are they old nor portly, Although the youth of each is past,

And some must take to glasses shortly. They shout his name, and bid him sitUnnoticed leave the knife and fork : They like their luncheon served with wit; They know that humour haunts his talk. He chaffs a friend who is no dunce

Good-natured always is his banter; He caps each argument at once,

And, with a laugh, wins in a canter. While many fly to work anew,

A few will stay and have their smoke. A tale is told; he tells one too,

Which, like his others, has its joke. The day glides on, he comes again; Two hours his hat and coat he'll doff :

He plays for fun, but likes to gain.

He has his whist, and then goes off.

A lumb'ring cab, a sorry steed,

His umbrella found, "Good night," He cries, though 'tis to one, indeed, Whose name he never fixes quite. He has his foibles-quite a scoreFirst, fashion cannot change his dress; He can't forgive a chronic bore,

Nor the American Free Press.

His scorn is great for foreign lands ;
He thinks bed is the proper place
(At ten) for weary head and hands—
In fact, for all the human race.
He thinks one woman's like the rest;
To be convinced he is unwilling ;
His heart with pity is impressed—
His hand is ready with a shilling.

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OLD WILLS.

OOD service has been done by the Library Committee of the City of London in publishing a calendar of wills proved and enrolled in the Court of Husting, London, 1288-1688. This work, now finished, appears in two handsome volumes, edited by Dr. Reginald Sharpe. It constitutes a step in that great movement, started by Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, of rendering generally accessible and available the records which are the true sources of our national history. What is more dull, it may be asked, than a will in which one has no interest? A collection of wills suggests a yawn almost involving dislocation. To those interested in our national antiquities and our social life, however, the collection now published is of indescribable interest. An absolute flood of light is poured upon the manners and modes of thought of our ancestors. As regards historic interest the present collection supplies the wills, among others, of William Walworth, whose bravery as Lord Mayor can never be forgotten; Richard Whityngton, whose adventures have almost passed into the mythical stage; Dean Colet, Sir Thomas Gresham, and I know not how many more. Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Gloucester, in "Richard III.," act iii. sc. iv., the lines

My Lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn

I saw good strawberries in your garden there.

The memory of this garden is of course preserved in Ely Place, Vine Street, and Kirby Street. In this work we have the will of John de Kyrkeby, Bishop of Ely, bequeathing to his see his houses, vines, and gardens, situate at Holborn. I cannot enter further into the subject. The book has interest for the general reader, and is a treasury to the antiquary. I am glad, however, to support an employment of municipal funds against which no protest is conceivable.

A MANUSCRIPT-BOOK OF RECEIPTS, MEDICAL AND CULINARY.

THE

HE functions of woman as a supplemental leech date back to feudal times; as a cook, presumably to the discovery of fire. Before the press had multiplied handy-books a receipt book was transmitted from generation to generation by a family of good housewives, and constituted not the least precious possession of the dame for the time being whose duties probably included, besides the provision for the wants of her family and her guests, the administration of gratuitous remedies to the inmates of her house and a certain portion of the poor in her neighbourhood. A volume of this kind, extending over the reigns of Queen Elizabeth to George III. inclusive, has been unearthed and published in facsimile, with an introduction by Mr. George Weddell. It is entitled "Arcana Fairfaxiana Manuscripta "1 and constitutes a genuine curiosity. As to the conditions under which it was discovered I must refer the reader to Mr. Weddell's preface, which has singular interest. It is sufficient to state that various ladies of the illustrious house of Fairfax have entered in its pages the remedies they have encountered or have proved by experi ence, or the appetising dishes they have learned to make. With its various handwritings, extending from what the editor calls the Shakespearean hand to the calligraphy of the latter half of the eighteenth century, it furnishes opportunity for a study of the development of Court hand. For its quaint receipts, however, I principally recommend it to my readers. One female Fairfax has tested by experience, and adds a note to that effect, a cure for bleeding at the nose, consisting of wearing next the skin, in a silk or satin bag, the body of a toad dried in March. A toad is a common item in an early pharmacopeia. Its heart, dried and beaten to powder, is a remedy for the falling sickness, and its dried body is a charm against many things. Snail shells dried and beaten to a powder are diuretic, and powdered hartshorn, as is naïvely described, exercises a contrary effect. I cannot give further insight into this remarkable book, of which a limited edition for the delectation of readers of antiquarian taste is published.

SYLVANUS URBAN.

1 Newcastle: Mawson, Swan & Morgan.

THE

GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE.

MAY 1891.

MAGICAL MUSIC.

BY RICHARD MARSH.

I.

ISS MACLEOD passed the newspaper to her nephew.

M "Look at that," she said. She had her finger on an

advertisement. He looked at it. This is what he read :

"A clergyman, having a large family entirely dependent on him, is compelled to sacrifice a unique set of apostle spoons. Twelve large, twelve small, silver gilt, in handsome case. Being in urgent want of money, a trifle will be accepted. Quite new. Would make a handsome present. Approval willingly. Letters only, Pomona Villa, Ladbroke Grove, W."

"What do you think of it?" inquired the lady.

The Rev. Alan smoothed the paper with his hand.

"Not much," he ventured to remark.

"Put on your hat and come with me. I'm going to buy them." My dear aunt!"

"They will do for a wedding present for Clara Leach. Other people can marry, if you can't."

The Rev. Alan sighed. He had been having a bad quarter of an hour. He was a little, freckled, sandy-haired, short-sighted man one of those short-sighted men whose spectacles require continually settling in their place on the bridge of the nose. Such as he was, he was the only hope of an ancient race-the only male hope, that is.

The Macleods of Pittenquhair predated the first of the Scottish kings. Fortunately for themselves they postdated them as well. For a considerable portion of their history, the members of that VOL. CCLXX. NO. 1925.

G G

time-honoured family had been compelled, in the Sidney-Smithian phrase, to cultivate their greatness on a little oatmeal-for want of cash to enable them to indulge in any other form of cultivation. But in these latter days they had grown rich, owing to a fortunate matrimonial speculation with a Chicago young lady whose father had something to do with hogs. The lady's name was Biggins-Cornelia P. Biggins-the P. stood for Pollie, which was her mother's name, the "front" name came from history. The particular Macleod who had married her had been christened David. He devoted a considerable portion of his wife's fortune to buying up the ancient lands of the Macleods, in the neighbourhood of Pittenquhair and thereabouts. In his person he resolved that the ancient family glories should re-appear-and more. But in these cases it is notorious that man only proposes his wife never bore him a child. To make matters worse, he only outlived Mrs. Macleod six months, so that he never had a decent chance to try his luck again.

David had a brother. Being a childless man, and desirous to restore the ancestral grandeur, one would have thought that he would have left his wealth to his brother, who wanted it if ever a man did yet. But, unfortunately, Alan was not only an irredeemable scamp. -which might have been forgiven him, for David was by no means spotless but also the two brothers hated each other with a truly enduring brotherly hatred. Nor had Alan improved matters by making public and unpleasant allusions to hogs and swine, not only on the occasion of David's marriage, but on many occasions afterwards. So it came to pass that when David was gathered to his fathers his brother's name was not even mentioned in his will. All his wealth was left to his sister Janet.

In course of time Alan died abroad-very much abroad, and in more senses than one. Then, for the first time, Janet appeared upon the scene. She paid for her brother's funeral, and took his only child, a boy, back with her to England. The child's mother, who was nothing and nobody, had died-charitable people said, murdered by her husband-soon after her infant's birth. So his aunt was the only relation the youngster had.

Janet was a spinster. She had ideas of her own, and plenty of them. Her dominant idea was that in her nephew the family sun should rise again in splendour. But alas for the perversity of fate! The boy passed from a public school to the university, and from the university-after a struggle, in which he showed himself, in a lymphatic sort of way, as obstinate as one of Mrs. David's father's pigs-into the church. This was bad enough for a son of his father,

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