me) could tell them something. On being thus directly alluded to, I begged to know if I had the honour of speaking to Miss Louisa V., apologizing for my rudeness on account of the urgency of the occasion. They were startled at the question, and Miss V., for her it certainly was, being too much agitated to reply, her friend, cold

ly overcoming her own timidity, answered in the affirmative. In truth, they were now alarmed at the step they had taken. Having requested the favour of their company to a private room, and waiving every idea of departing for the present, I entered into such particulars as I considered necessary, my fair auditors listening with tearful attention; but when I mentioned that Mr Campbell had set off for Rotterdam, Louisa, suddenly starting up, energetically exclaimed, "Then we must go to Rotterdam directly, love." With considerable difficulty I gently calmed her, but principally by pledging myself that the first letter which I received, pursuant to his promise, should be put into her own hands, and that I would take care to forward any communication she might wish to send him. This relieved her in some degree from the weight of anxiety and uncertainty under which she had laboured, and she consented to leave the affair to me, with the most enchanting expressions of gratitude.

We remained that night at the inn, greatly to the satisfaction of Mr B., who charitably pleaded "that the young ladies would be much the better for it"-and himself. The ensuing morning we commenced our journey homewards, both my charm. ing and unexpected companions committing themselves to my charge. During our progress, and in the course of conversation, which, as might be supposed, was almost confined to the subject of Mr C., they favoured me with a detail of the means by which they had obtained a clue to the place of his retreat. For several days after the abrupt dismissal of her betrothed, Louisa V. had been rigidly secluded by her brother William, by whose barbarous threats she had been compelled to write the letter inserted above, and by whose orders the hasty removal had been effected. All the liberty allowed her was to apprize

Edmund of the occurrence. She contrived, however, to evade his vigilance, and her first impulse was to run to Mr C.'s house, where the domestics were still remaining; but from them she ascertained no more than that Mr C. had not been there, to their great wonder, for some days past. Her next step was to the police-office, where she fortunately met Mr T., who politely informed her that he was ignorant of Mr C.'s present residence; but that a letter had been sent from a magistrate at --, giving an account of a stranger, whom he had thought proper to detain till he heard from him, (Mr T.,) the description very closely applying to Mr C. Her determination was at once fixed. Fearful of detention if she went home, she proceeded to her cousin and intimate friend Miss M., her present companion, to seek her assistance. With the devotion of sincere friendship, Miss M. instantly assented, and a note having been posted to Mrs V., with the least possible delay these two amiable ones set out on their love expedition.

We pursued our way without any remarkable accident, except when about halfway observing a post-chaise dashing by us at full speed, towards the quarter we were leaving. On reaching London I escorted Miss V. to her home, in which, however, were neither her mother nor William. Edmund had joined them from Paris, and all three, as the servants told us, had hurried after her to --, William heaping the bitterest imprecations upon her for the trouble she was giving him. It was arranged, in consequence, that I should not communicate with her directly, but only through the medium of Miss M., as in all probability she would be again doomed to strict seclusion when in the power of her brother, which happened in a very few hours after.

In the mean time I devoted myself to my promised efforts. My first object was to find the clerk who cashed the check, and in this I had little difficulty, as also in inducing him to ac-. company me in looking after the ticket-porter above mentioned. While thus engaged, a desponding letter arrived from Mr C. at Rotterdam, stating that he had written to Edmund;

but the latter's silence convincing him that he was deserted by them all, he urged me to cease to trouble myself about a person who had no longer any thing to gain from the world's opinion. He of course was not aware of Edmund's absence. This letter I forwarded to Louisa by Miss M., who was still allowed intercourse with her. Through the same channel I obtained one from her, which I enclosed in my own reply, in which I entreated him to sustain himself a short time longer; and I have no doubt Louisa's letter encouraged him to do

So.

My search after the ticket-porter being at length successful, by promises of reward for the benefit of his testimony, I procured a description of the individual who sent him with the draft-a description as unlike that of my unfortunate client as is the similarity of a greasy Hottentot to a Chinese. He said the gentleman in question had given him, besides money, employment in Wales, where he had remained three or four months, so that the man was effectually precluded from knowing what had transpired in London. To make "assurance doubly sure," I next tried to find out Jones, but here I failed; he no longer had a seat in the House, and had fled from the country to avoid arrest. Satisfied, notwithstanding, that I could now prove Mr C.'s innocence, I called on Mrs V., and before the redoubtable William and Edmund, whom I now saw for the first time, Louisa and Miss M., I related my discoveries.

I need not dilate upon the gratification felt by all but William, who began to make some savage remarks, interspersed with threats; but having been used to bullies professionally, I soon quieted him by counter-threats. Mr C. having obeyed my summons to London, the magistrates kindly permitted another examination, at which the ticket-porter unequivocally de. clared that he was not the person who had employed him, and gave other evidence, which caused the magistrates themselves to congratulate Mr C., and to express their regret that Jones was out of their jurisdiction. His intercourse with Louisa was of course resumed, I undertaking to hold William in check. She had demonstrated that her love had never abated, and

his, though it had been damped by imagined disappointment, returned with renewed ardour. The adventures of his life were repeated, so that any chance of further misunderstanding might be removed; and I shortly had the pleasure of acting, by particular desire, as father to the excellent Louisa at the performance of their nuptials. I then, as Mr C.'s attorney, filed a bill in Chancery against William, and, as I expected, discovered that he had been making rather free with the money under his management. The solicitations of his family, however, prevented an extensive exposure of his conduct to his sister and Mr C.

After

My satisfaction at this fortunate issue of my endeavours, however, was not thus to be completed. I was destined to be the gratified agent of another interesting discovery. Some weeks after the marriage, whilst in my office, one of the clerks ushered into my room an elderly gentleman of foreign appearance. Save his countenance, on which the lines of grief and care were strongly drawn, he bore no signs of advanced age, the freedom of his movements being apparently unimpeded by corporeal debility an apologizing preface, he desired to see the gentleman who had exerted himself so much in the Jones and check transaction. My acknowledgment that I was the party, brought forth an entreaty that I would immediately lead him to that Mr C., as he had every reason to believe he was his own son. It was so. It was the father of my friend with whom I was now conversing. He was a native of France, in which country he had made a small fortune as a merchant, with which he escaped to England during the convulsions which broke out there, prompted to this course by the same terrors which led so many of his countrymen to become emigrants. In this country he married an orphan against the consent of her relations, whose sanction to the match was refused, not on the score of property, for she had none, but because their John Bull pride resented the connexion with a Frenchman. He lived in Hertfordshire, in the utmost enjoyment that love and domestic comfort could afford, till left a sorrowful widower by the death of his wife, a few months after the birth of a boy, when the unrelenting hostility of his wife's relations seemed to increase. Before twelve months had elapsed, they procured, under the arbitrary and indiscriminate system pursued by Government at that period towards aliens, a peremptory official order to him to leave the kingdom within an assigned time. Reluctant to expose his child to the hardships of a voyage, and trusting to be enabled to return soon, he determined on consigning him to the care of two of his wife's friends, who alone had remained attached to her, with further directions as to Mr E., in whose integrity he had every confidence, as the reader is already aware, in case any thing serious should happen to himself. His desire for the concealment of the father's name arose from a fear lest his foreign extraction should operate against the child while under the protection of strangers. Having provided the requisite funds for these purposes, he leparted with a heavy heart for America, taking with him a portion of his property. On the passage, the vessel was captured by a French privateer, in which he was carried to Guadaloupe, where he was robbed of his money, and compelled, under a threat of instant death, for being found on board an enemy's ship, to enter the army. For years he endured innumerable privations in the progress of the war, till at length he effected his passage to America. Reduced to poverty, his only consolation was that he had provided for his son, on whose account he repeatedly wrote to London, but without gaining any intelli

gence; his letters probably never arrived. His active mind, however, found means of subsistence, and he at last again accumulated a moderate independency, and, on the final declaration of peace in 1815, Le L. directed his whole attention to the recovery of his son, and this search had engaged him in various parts for the last several years. While at Paris, sick at heart, and despairing of ever beholding his child, he overheard some Englishmen in a coffeehouse discoursing about the affair of the check. Of them he immediately made enquiries, the result of which was his visit to me.

The reader will believe me that my joy was not inferior to that of the father or son at the interview which immediately followed the father's visit to me. All, (except William, who was unregrettedly absent,) including Miss M., were deeply affected at this consummation of their happiness; while my feelings were such that I internally hoped for such another opportunity of rescuing worth from unmerited opprobrium.

Mr C. obtained the proper legal permission to assume his father's name, Le L. And now my tale is ended, unless some of my very inquisitive readers may wish to know what became of Miss M. I will gratify their curiosity at the risk of the charge of egotism. Her merits and affection displayed on behalf of her friend were not lost on me. I solicited her hand. She is my wife; and I for one can solemnly aver, that I have no cause to regret my encounter with the NAMELESS MAN.

muddy lane come one or two sports men; halls and parks disembogue their inhabitants as we pass-orators, magistrates, legislators, tend onwards to one point; and we think we perceive, on steady brown horses, two or perhaps three uncommonly sedate-looking gentlemen, not altogether unlike chaplains, to the hunt.

Neither age nor sex is spared, as we read in the accounts of captured cities; old men and boys, young men and maidens-all obey the call; and at last, by half-past ten, a couple of hundred people-of all ranks, classes, and degrees of men are collected at the place of meeting, and anxious for the commencement of the sport. The dogs are thrown into a small plantation-the huntsmen and whippers-in glance momentarily at the end of the different alleys, as they watch how the hounds are working all eyes are directed to the plantation, all bridles are held tight in hand and at last, after one or two ineffective barks, a loud clear voice bursts out from an old dog; the huntsman gives the hollo, spurs are clapped into the flanks of every steed, a great rush-a dash through the nearest hedge-and away! away o'er field and fallow, goes the whole multitude, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, but tearing on-on- on, as if it were a race, wherein it was an arranged thing that the devil should take the hindmost. In half-anhour how different is the face of the country!-Dotted here and there a few red-coats are still to be seen, like stragglers from an advancing army - silence and solitude resume their ancient sway over the cover at the hill's side; and far off as the eye can reach, in one compact mass, which you could cover with a tablecloth, are the hounds, the hunts. men, and seven or eight of the foremost riders. On they go-breaking into quiet domains with their loud holloes, miles from where they started. The peasantry, following the plough or harrows, look on them amazed, as thundering forward they present themselves for a moment close beside them, and the next are at the other side of the meadow. Horses now begin to tire-one reposes in a ditch-another enjoys the rural amusement of swinging on a gate, though, as several of the top spikes are run into its bowels, you can't help won

dering at its selection of such an occupation. The run has now lasted three hours the riders have displayed incredible ardour in chasing an invisible object; for not one in twenty has caught a single glimpse of the fugitive -and four men, including the huntsman, at last ride up to the neighbourhood of a windmill in a different county, and with some difficulty rescue a small bushy substance covered with red hair from the throats of the dogs, which have swallowed all the other component parts of the defunct Reynard. And with the full persuasion that this is ample compensation for time, money, and labour, they betake themselves as rapidly as possible to their respective homes, to prepare for a similar occupation on the following day. This is fox-hunting. We grant there is something in it, and, to those who enter into the science of it, that it almost rises to the dignity of a reasonable pursuit. Besides, the fox is noxious, and has few good qualities to recommend him; but still, how tame, how poor, how unexciting, compared to what we read of in other lands! But some jolly fox-hunting squire will say, "Read of!-who cares what you read of? a little thing looks very well in a book." We are not quite so sure of that. It would be a mighty clever book that would make a review in Hyde Park as magnificent as Waterloo. We rather believe that books never give half vivid enough impressions either of hunts or battles. As far as we are concerned, we would rather see a donkey race than read of Eclipse; rather see a skrimmage with the new police than read of Thermopylæ; - but all we at present contend for is, the wonderful inferiority of all accounts of fox-hunting to the descriptions of other and nobler sports; and this by no means arises from a deficiency in the recorders of such home incidents. The sporting magazines, Old and New, contain some of the best writing of the present day-Nimrod himself is an admirable author; and the followers of Nimrod, who are no inconsiderable number, handle the pen as knowingly as the bridle. But all their talent and all their enthusiasm won't do. Fox-hunting kicks the beam, and, as compared with nobler doings, is scarcely indeed to be distinguished from hare-hunting.

are

We

not going to speak of Lloyd