I do not mean by death. Those who | And he died; and his family never are gone, you have. Those who de- knew until he was gone, that he had parted loving you, love you still; and been long aware of the inevitable you love them always. They are not doom. really gone, those dear hearts and true; they are only gone into the next room and you will presently get up and follow them, and yonder door will close upon you, and you will be no more seen. As I am in this cheerful mood, I will tell you a fine and touching story of a doctor which I heard lately. About two years since there was, in our or some other city, a famous doctor, into whose consulting-room crowds came daily, so that they might be healed. Now this doctor had a suspicion that there was something vitally wrong with himself, and he went to consult another famous physician at Dublin, or it may be at Edinburgh. And he of Edinburgh punched his comrade's sides; and listened at his heart and lungs; and felt his pulse, I suppose; and looked at his tongue; and when he had done, Doctor London said to Doctor Edinburgh, "Doctor, how long have I to live?" And Doctor Edinburgh said to Doctor London, "Doctor, you may last a year." Then Doctor London came home, knowing that what Doctor Edinburgh said was true. And he made up his accounts, with man and heaven, I trust. And he visited his patients as usual. And he went about healing, and cheering, and soothing, and doctoring; and thousands of sick people were benefited by him. And he said not a word to his family at home; but lived amongst them cheerful and tender, and calm, and loving; though he knew the night was at hand when he should see them and work no more. And it was winter time, and they came and told him that some man at a distance-very sick, but very rich -wanted him; and, though Doctor London knew that he was himself at death's door, he went to the sick man; for he knew the large fee would be good for his children after him. This is a cheerful carol for Christmas, is it not? You see, in regard to these Roundabout discourses, I never know whether they are to be merry or dismal. My hobby has the bit in his mouth; goes his own way; and sometimes trots through a park, and sometimes paces by a cemetery. Two days since came the printer's little emissary, with a note saying, "We are waiting for the Roundabout Paper!" A Roundabout Paper about what or whom? How stale it has become, that printed jollity about Christmas ! Carols, and wassailbowls, and holly, and mistletoe, and yule-logs de commande - what heaps of these have we not had for years past! Well, year after year the season comes. Come frost, come thaw, come snow, come rain, year after year my neighbor the parson has to make his sermon. They are getting together the bonbons, iced cakes, Christmas trees at Fortnum and Mason's now. The genii of the theatres are composing the Christmas pantomime, which our young folks will see and note anon in their little diaries. And now, brethren, may I conclude this discourse with an extract out of that great diary, the newspaper? I read it but yesterday, and it has mingled with all my thoughts since then. Here are the two paragraphs, which appeared following each other: "Mr. R., the Advocate-General of Calcutta, has been appointed to the post of Legislative Member of the Council of the Governor-General." "Sir R. S., Agent to the Governor-General for Central India, died on the 29th of October, of bronchitis." These two men, whose different fates are recorded in two paragraphs and half a dozen lines of the same newspaper, were sisters' sons. In one of the stories by the present writer, a man is described tottering "up the steps of the ghaut," having just parted with his child, whom he is despatching to England from India. I wrote this, remembering in long, long distant days, such a ghaut, or riverstair, at Calcutta; and a day when, down those steps, to a boat which was in waiting, came two children, whose mothers remained on the shore. One of those ladies was never to see her boy more; and he, too, is just dead in India, “of bronchitis, on the 29th October." We were first-cousins; had been little playmates and friends from the time of our birth; and the first house in London to which I was taken was that of our aunt, the mother of his Honor the Member of Council. His Honor was even then a gentleman of the long robe, being, in truth, a baby in arms. We Indian children were consigned to a school of which our deluded parents had heard a favorable report, but which was governed by a horrible little tyrant, who made our young lives so miserable that I remember kneeling by my little bed of a night, and saying, "Pray God, I may dream of my mother! Thence we went to a public schoo!: and my cousin to Addiscombe and to India. discharge of his duties. Lord Canning, to mark his high sense of Sir Richmond Shakespear's public services, had lately offered him the Chief Commissionership of Mysore, which he had accepted, and was about to undertake, when death terminated his career." When he came to London the cousins and playfellows of early Indian days met once again, and shook hands. Can I do any thing for you?" I remember the kind fellow asking. He was always asking that question: of all kinsmen; of all widows and orphans; of all the poor; of young men who might need his purse or his service. I saw a young officer yesterday to whom the first words Sir Richmond Shakespear wrote on his arrival in India were, "Can I do any thing for you?" His purse was at the com mand of all. His kind hand was al ways open. It was a gracious fat which sent him to rescue widows and captives. Where could they have had a champion more chivalrous, a protector more loving and tender? I write down his name in my litt book, among those of others dearly loved, who, too, have been summoned hence. And so we meet and part we struggle and succeed; or we fail and drop unknown on the way. A we leave the fond mother's knee, the rough trials of childhood and boy hood begin; and then manhood upon us, and the battle of life with its chances, perils, wounds, defeats, distinctions. And Fort William guns are saluting in one man's honor,* while the troops are firing the last volleys over the other's grave-over the grave of the brave, the gentle, the faithful Christian soldier. For thirty-two years," the paper savs, Sir Richmond Shakespear faithfully and devotedly served the Government of India, and during that period but once visited England, for a few months and on public duty. In his military capacity he saw much service, was present in eight general engagements, and was badly wounded in the last. In 1840, when a young lieutenant, he had the rare good fortune to be the means of rescuing from almost hopeless slavery in Khiva 416 subjects of the Emperor of Russia; and, but two years later, greatly contributed to the happy re- NOTES OF A WEEK'S HOLI covery of our own prisoners from a similar fate in Cabul. Throughout his career this officer was ever ready DAY. Most of us tell old stories in ou and zealous for the public service, and families. The wife and children laugh freely risked life and liberty in the * W. R. obiit March 22, 1862. for the hundredth time at the joke. | his damper over our hilarity." 66 I lay down the pen, and think, “Are - no man The old servants (though old servants are fewer every day) nod and smile a recognition at the well-known anecdote. "Don't tell that story of Grouse in the gun-room," says Diggory_to Mr. Hardcastle in the play, or I must laugh." As we twaddle, and grow old and forgetful, we may tell an old story; or, out of mere benevolence, and a wish to amuse a friend when conversation is flagging, dísinter a Joe Miller now and then; but the practice is not quite honest, and entails a certain necessity of hypocrisy on story hearers and tellers. It is a sad thing to think that a man with what you call a fund of anecdote is a humbug, more or less amiable and pleasant. What right have I to tell my "Grouse in the gun-room over and over in the presence of my wife, mother, mother-in-law, sons, daughters, old footman or parlormaid, confidential clerk, curate, or what not? I smirk and go through the history, giving my admirable imi- And is it not with writers as with tations of the characters introduced: raconteurs? Ought they not to have I mimic Jones's grin, Hobbs's squint, their ingenuous modesty? May auBrown's stammer, Grady's brogue, thors tell old stories, and how many Sandy's Scotch accent, to the best of times over? When I come to look my power and the family part of at a place which I have visited any my audience laughs good-humoredly. time these twenty or thirty years, I Perhaps the stranger, for whose recall not the place merely, but the amusement the performance is given, sensations I had at first seeing it, and is amused by it, and laughs too. But which are quite different to my feelthis practice continued is not moral. | ings to-day. That first day at Calais ; This self-indulgence on your part, the voices of the women crying out at my dear Paterfamilias, is weak, vain night, as the vessel came alongside the -not to say culpable. I can imagine pier: the supper at Quillacq and many a worthy man, who begins un- the flavor of the cutlets and wine; guardedly to read this page, and the red-calico canopy under which I comes to the present sentence, lying slept: the tiled floor, and the fresh back in his chair, thinking of that smell of the sheets; the wonderful story which he has told innocently postilion in his jack-boots and pigfor fifty years, and rather piteously tail; –all return with perfect clearowning to himself, "Well, well, it is ness to my mind, and I am seeing wrong; I have no right to call on my them and not the objects which are poor wife to laugh, my daughters to actually under my eyes. Here is affect to be amused, by that old, old | Calais. Yonder is that commissioner jest of mine. And they would have I have known this score of years. gone on laughing, and they would Here are the women screaming and have preter ded to be amused, to their bustling over the baggage; the peodying day, if this man had not flung ple at the passport-barrier who take read that when gentlemen's or ladies' your papers. My good people, I been pulled down ever so long. They hardly see you. You no more inter- knocked down the poor old Virginia est me than a dozen orange-women in Coffee-house last year. My spirit goes Covent Garden, or a shop book-keeper and dines there. My body, perhaps, in Oxford Street. But you make me is seated with ever so many people in think of a time when you were indeed a railway-carriage, and no wonder my wonderful to behold - when the little companions find me dull and silent. French soldiers wore white cockades Have you read Mr. Dale Owen's in their shakos-when the diligence "Footfalls on the Boundary of Anwas forty hours going to Paris; and other World"? (My dear sir, it will the great-booted postilion, as sur-make your hair stand quite refreshingveyed by youthful eyes from the cou-ly on end). In that work you will pé, with his jurons, his ends of rope for the harness, and his clubbed pigtail, was a wonderful being, and productive of endless amusement. You young folks don't remember the apple-girls who used to follow the diligence up the hill beyond Boulogne, and the delights of the jolly road? In making continental journeys with young folks, an oldster may be very quiet, and, to outward appearance, melancholy; but really he has gone back to the days of his youth, and he is seventeen or eighteen years of age (as the case may be), and is amusing himself with all his might. He is noting the horses as they come squealing out of the post-house yard at midnight; he is enjoying the delicious meals at Beauvais and Amiens, and quaffing ad libitum the rich tabled'hôte wine; he is hail-fellow with the conductor, and alive to all the incidents of the road. A man can be alive in 1860 and 1830 at the same time, don't you see? Bodily, I may be in 1860, inert, silent, torpid; but in the spirit I am walking about in 1828, let us say; in a blue dresscoat and brass buttons, a sweet figured silk waistcoat (which I button round a slim waist with perfect ease), look-never have allowed me, even in my ing at beautiful beings with gigot sleeves and tea-tray hats under the golden chestnuts of the Tuileries, or round the Place Vendôme, where the drapeau blanc is floating from the statueless column. Shall we go and dine at "Bombarda's," near the CARILLON.I was awakened this "Hôtel Breteuil," or at the "Café morning with the chime which AntVirginie?" Away! "Bombar-werp cathedral clock plays at halfda's" and the "Hôtel Breteuil" have hours. The tune has been haunting are O Eliza, Eliza ! Stay, was she Eliza? Well, I protest I have forgotten what your Christian name was. You know I only met you for two days, but your sweet face is before me now, and the roses blooming on it are as fresh as in that time of May. Ah, dear Miss X, my timid youth and ingenuous modesty would private thoughts, to address you otherwise than by your paternal name, but that (though I conceal it) I remember perfectly well, and that your dear and respected father was a brewer. me ever since, as tunes will. You | Ursula's at Brussels, and toss a recdress, eat, drink, walk, and talk to ognition to that one at the town-hall yourself to their tune: their inaudible of Oudenarde, and remember how jingle accompanies you all day: you after a great struggle there a hundred read the sentences of the paper to and fifty years ago the whole plain their rhythm. I tried uncouthly to was covered with the flying French imitate the tune to the ladies of the cavalry- Burgundy, and Berri, and family at breakfast, and they say it the Chevalier of St. George flying like is "the shadow dance of Dinorah." the rest. "What is your clamor It may be so. I dimly remember about Oudenarde?" says another that my body was once present dur- bell (Bob Major this one must be). ing the performance of that opera, "Be still, thou querulous old clapper! whilst my eyes were closed, and my I can see over to Hougoumont and intellectual faculties dormant at the St. John. And about forty-five years back of the box; howbeit, I have since, I rang all through one Sunday learned that shadow dance from hear- in June, when there was such a battle ing it pealing up ever so high in the going on in the corn-fields there, as air, at night, morn, noon. none of you others ever heard tolled of. Yes, from morning service until after vespers, the French and English were all at it, ding-dong." And then calls of business intervening, the bells have to give up their private jangle, resume their professional duty, and sing their hourly chorus out of Dinorah. How pleasant to lie awake and listen to the cheery peal! whilst the old city is asleep at midnight, or waking up rosy at sunrise, or basking in noon, or swept by the scudding rain which drives in gusts over the broad places, and the great shining river; or sparkling in snow which dresses up a hundred thousand masts,, peaks, and towers; or wrapped round with thunder-cloud canopies, before which the white gables shine whiter; day and night the kind little carillon plays its fantastic melodies overhead. The bells go on ringing. Quot vivos vocant, mortuos plangunt, fulgura frangunt; so on to the past and future tenses, and for how many nights, days, and years! Whilst the French were pitching their fulgura into Chasse's citadel, the bells went on ringing quite cheerfully. Whilst the scaffolds were up and guarded by Alva's soldiery, and regiments of penitents, blue, black, and gray, poured out of churches and convents, droning their dirges, and marching to the place of the Hôtel de Ville, where heretics and rebels were to meet their doom, the bells up yonder were chanting at their appointed halfhours and quarters, and rang the mauvais quart d'heure for many a poor soul. This bell can see as far away as the towers and dykes of Rotterdam. That one can call a greeting to St. |