poet. In the very dirt of London streets she may have flung that dia- "How sweet and lovely dost thou make the shame Which for their habitation chose out thee I!" Her accomplishments, too, must have been great,-her powers of entertainment, her fancies to adorn her beauty, must have made it indeed triumphant! She was certainly a sweet musician, and played Elizabeth's music, the virginals : 66 How oft when thou, my music, music play'st, Upon that blessed wood whose motion sounds And he adds an exquisite line 66 -with those dancing chips O'er whom thy fingers walk with gentle gait **"* It will have been seen, by many of the recent passages I have quoted, that Shakspeare's persuasion not only of her faithlessness, but almost of her "commonness," now fully existed ++. She had given him, indeed, too many fatal proofs of it. The last and bitterest seems to have been the betrayal of his young and passionately beloved friend into her power. Of this strange passage in the "story of this woman's days," and of the remarkable men with whom she has managed to associate herself for ever, I shall speak at greater length in the next Chapter of these Confessions, on THE FRIEND OF SHAKSPEARE. It had the deepest effect of all upon the poet, though at first he struggles to contest with it. He thinks he must hate her: he tries all the excuses he can for that he * Sonnet 43. † Sonnet 137. ¶Sonnet 95. Sonnet 137. § Sonnet 137. || Sonnet 137. ** Sonnet 128. ff The descent was, as I have already remarked, a matter of course. “A woman, when she has once stepped astray, seldom pauses in her downward career till 'guilt grows fate, that was but choice before.' There is a remarkable exception to this, however, in the case of Nell Gwynn—a most delightful account of whose life may be seen in the book from which the above observation is taken, "The Beauties of the Court of Charles the Second," by Mrs. Jameson. There, too, is Nell's glowing picture, among a set of loves and graces equally glowing, and only less bewitching. The book is a rich gallery. For the pleasantest and most characteristic sketches of them in the world see Sir Ralph Esher. still loves her. Cruel is the agitation with which the passions of this love act and react upon each other! But he submits again!— "Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows, Kill me with spites; yet we must not be foes*!"* So difficult was it in Shakspeare to surrender even this habit of loving. But that seldom fails to remain in affectionate hearts, though the reason for it has been discovered imaginary, and to exist no more. Love has everlasting memories, and memories still carry in their train the possibility of having, what has been too sweet to part with utterly, again restored. I may close here for the present the story of the mistress of Shakspeare. I shall have other occasions to render it more complete, but they occur in the subjects to which my succeeding chapters will be devoted, and must be treated of there. I may say here, however, before quitting it, that after her intrigue with his friend, the bitterness of their intercourse would seem to have been great on both sides. She has wronged him so deeply that nothing remains for her but to complete it by adding dislike to her injury, and thus visiting upon him in the last effectual shape the sin of her own injustice. This would seem to have been the end. This rankles in his breast, till it leaves him no more vain excuses for his passion. It becomes a raging " fever," and he calls on "death to end it +." "Past cure I am, now reason is past care, And frantic mad with ever more unrest; My thoughts and my discourse as madmen's are, For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright, Tragedy, it has been said, opens the chambers of the human heart, by leaving nothing indifferent to us that can affect our common nature. "It excites our sensibility by exhibiting the passions wound up to the utmost pitch by the power of imagination, or the temptation of circumstances; and corrects their fatal excesses in ourselves by pointing to the greater extent of sufferings and of crimes to which they have led others." How often has Shakspeare illustrated this in his amazing writings; behold him illustrating it in himself! See the chambers of his own heart open, a sphere of humanity." It is this which has induced me to endeavour to take advantage of the "key" with which he had himself "unlocked" that mighty heart. It is for others to determine whether I have succeeded§. Here, at least, is sufficient in these Confessions to balance their evil with good; the greatness of the one may serve to illustrate only an extreme desire for the other, and a determination to sustain that desire, at all events, through every shape of suffering. We have endured a DISCIPLINE OF HUMANITY. The concluding chapters of these Confessions will be devoted to the "Friend of Shakspeare," to the "Melancholy and Discontent of Shakspeare," and to " Shakspeare's Sense of his own Genius," and the "Value he set upon Posthumous Fame." * Sonnet 40. + Sonnet 147. Sonnet 147. § I have at least had the honour of suggesting an article on the Sonnets of Shakspeare to an accomplished French writer; and I have to thank an able critic in the "Morning Herald" for an admirable notice of the subject. PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEY TO LITTLE PEDLINGTON. FELIX HOPPY, Esq., Master of the Ceremonies at Little Pedlington, has conferred upon the world in general, and upon me in particular, a never-sufficiently-to-be-appreciated favour, by the publication of the Little-Pedlington Guide. At the approach of the summer season,— that season when London (and since the pacification of Europe, all England) is declared to be unendurable by all those who fancy that they shall be happier anywhere than where they happen to be, and who possess the means and the opportunity of indulging in the experiment of change of place; at the approach of that season, this present, I found myself, like Othello, " perplexed in the extreme." The self-proposed question, " And where shall I go this year?" I could not answer in any way to my satisfaction. I had visited, as I believed, every spot in Europe which celebrity, from some cause or other, had rendered attractive. I had climbed many thousands of feet up Mont Blanc, and had stood on the very summit of Greenwich Hill; I had "swam on a gondola at Venice, and "patienced" in a punt at Putney; had found my way through the dark and tangled forests of Germany, and lost it in the Maze at Hampton Court; bathed in the changing waters of the Rhône and in the consistent mud of Gravesend; beheld the fading glories of old Rome, and the rising splendours of New Kemp Town; I had heard the Miserere performed in the Sistine Chapel, and the hundred-and-fourth psalm sung by the charity-boys in Hampstead church; I had seen the Raphaels at Florence, the Corregios at Dresden, the Rembrandts at Rotterdam, and the camera-obscura at Margate; I had tasted of Caviare on the shores of the Black Sea, and of white-bait on the banks of Blackwall; I had travelled on a Russian sledge and in a Brentford omnibus; I had been everywhere (in Europe-the boundary of all my travelling projects), done everything, seen everything, heard everything, and tasted of everything. Novelty, and change of scene, are the idle man's inducements to travel: for me there remained neither. I was --to use a melancholy phrase I once heard feelingly uttered by a young nobleman who had not then attained his twentieth year-blasé sur tout! Still the unanswerable question recurred-" And where shall I go this year?" As for the hundredth time I exclaimed, " And where shall I go this year?" a packet was sent me by my bookseller, who has a general order to supply me with all voyages, travels, journeys, tours, road-books, guides, and atlases, as soon as published. The parcel contained new editions of "Denham's Travels in Africa," of "Humboldt's in South America," and of "Parry's Voyages;" together with, just published, and wet from the press, "The Stranger's Guide through Little Pedlington, by Felix Hoppy, Esq., M.C." Throwing aside the rest as unimportant to my present purpose, I, on the instant, perused this last. No longer was I doubtful concerning my "whereabout." Little Pedlington, thought I, must be a Paradise! And had not my desire to visit this heaven upon earth been sufficiently excited by the exquisite lines so aptly quoted by the M.C. from the charming poem of the "tuneful Jubb," -VOL. XLIV. NO. CLXXV. July.— 2 A Hail, Pedlingtonia! hail, thou favour'd spot! What's good is found in thee; what's not, is not!" had not the promise of so much to gratify as well the intellect as the senses induced me thither; a feeling of shame, the consciousness that the bitter reproof uttered by the M.C. himself applied in its fullest force to my case, would alone have urged me to make the amende honorable by an immediate journey to the place. "Well may it be said," he exclaims, " that Englishmen are prone to explore foreign countries ere yet they are acquainted with their own; and many a one will talk ecstatically of the marble palaces of Venice and Herculaneum, who is ignorant of the beauties of Little-Pedlington." True, true, indeed! and, myself standing in that predicament, I felt the sarcasm the more acutely. It was a suffering of a nature not long to be borne with patience; so I resolved to book a place for that same evening in the Little-Pedlington mail. Not a little was my astonishment on learning that there was no mail to that celebrated place; but great indeed it was when I was informed that there was no public conveyance whatever direct thither! However, I found that the Winklemouth coach (which ran nearer to it than any other) would set me down at Poppleton-End; that there I should be pretty sure of meeting with some one who would carry my luggage to Squashmire-gate, a short three miles; and that from thence to LittlePedlington, a distance of eight miles-there or thereabouts-a coach ran regularly three times a-week during the season. Too happy to get there in any manner, I took a place in the Winklemouth coach, and, shortly afterwards, was rattling on towards the goal of my desires. Between four and five in the morning the coach pulled up at the corner of a narrow cart-road, of no very inviting appearance, the soil being of clay, and the holes and wheel-tracks filled with water by the late heavy rains. A slight drizzling rain was falling then. The country for miles round was a dead flat, and not a house or shelter of any kind, save here and there a tree, was to be seen. "Poppleton-End, Sir," said the guard, as he let down the step. "What is this Poppleton-End?" said I. "Yes, Sir," replied he (adding with a leer which clearly indicated that he was satisfied of the excellence of his joke)," and has been, time out of mind." "But I have a heavy valise with me," said I, as I alighted. "Yes, Sir," replied the guard, taking it down from the top of the coach, and placing it against the boundary-stone at the corner of the lane; "it is precious heavy indeed." "Well-I was informed that I should find somebody here who would carry it to Squashmire-gate; but there is no person within sight, and I can't carry it myself." "Why no, Sir, I don't very well see how you can; at least," continued he, in the same facetious tone, "it wouldn't be altogether pleasant. Hows'ever, Sir, you have a very good chance of Blind Bob coming up with his truck in about half-an-hour-or so." I hate the phrase "or so." It is a cheat, an impostor, a specious rogue and an insidious. In all matters involving an inconvenience, I have invariably found that it is an aggravation of the original evil at least threefold. Thus, your "three miles, or so, farther," to the place of your destination, after a wearisome walk in a strange country, may usually be computed at nine; a guinea or so," in an uncertain charge, at three; if waiting the arrival of your bride, " an hour or so," at a day, a week, a year; if of your wife-but that is a case dependent upon peculiar circumstances. "And pray, guard," inquired I, rather peevishly, "where am I to wait during that half-hour-or so?" "Why, Sir, if you should chance to miss Blind Bob, you might perhaps find it a leetle awkward with that large trunk of your's; so if you'll take my advice, Sir, you'll wait where you are. Good morning, Sir. I don't think it will be much of a rain, Sir. All right, Bill; get on." So saying, he mounted the coach, and left me seated beneath my umbrella on the boundary-stone at Poppleton-End, at half-past four of the morning, in a drizzling rain. They who travel much must be prepared to meet with difficulties; sometimes to encounter dangers: these carry a compensation with them in the excitement which they produce, and the high feelings they inspire. But one sinks under a tame and spiritless inconvenience: one's fortitude sneaks off, as it were, and one's temper oozes away. At five, at half-past five, at six o'clock, there I still sat, and not a human creature had come near me. The abominable rain, too! Rain! it was unworthy the name of rain. A good, honest, manly shower, which would have made one wet through-and-through in five seconds I could have borne without complaint; but to be made to suffer the intolerable sensation of dampness merely, by a snivelling, drivelling, mizzling, drizzling sputter, and that, too, by dint of the exercise of its petty spite for a full hour-and-a-half! There are annoyances which, it is said, are of a nature to make a parson swear; but this would have set swearing the whole bench of Bishops, with their Graces of York and Canterbury at their head. At length I perceived, at some distance down the lane, a man dragging along a truck, at what seemed to me a tolerably brisk pace, considering the state of the road. He drew it by means of a strap passing over his shoulders and across his chest: and he carried in his hand a stout staff, which he occasionally struck upon the ground, though apparently not for support. He was rather above the middle height, broad, square, and muscular,-a cart-horse of a fellow. On arriving within two steps of my resting-place, he stopped, and with a voice of tenboatswain power, shouted "Any one here for Squash'ire-Gate ?" "Yes," said I, almost stunned by the report, here." "don't you see? I am "I wish I could," said he; "but as I have lived Blind Bob all my life, Blind Bob I shall die." The guard's description of my intended guide and carrier as " Blind Bob" had certainly not prepared me for the phenomenon I was now to witness. Had I, indeed, paid any attention to it, the utmost I should have expected, as a justification of it, would have been a deduction of fifty per cent. from the usual allowance of eyes, in the case of the party in question. But here was a guide stone-blind!* * Many persons may have seen the blind man, who is (or lately was) frequently |