Doctor pronounced it a Bad Job and after saying O Law three times was a Corps. He left no Will nor no property, and was Sowed up and heaved overboard, same day in lat. 41.5 N. long. 8.50 W.

I take the Liberty of writing This that you may inform Parents, provided there's father or mother, as well as to his widow and children, if so be. Should you be encouraged to come out to us in your friend's Place, you will be heartily welcome, and lots of as jolly good fighting as hearts can wish. So no more at present from

Your Humble Servant,

THOMAS BENYON.

N. B. Go to the Duncan's Head in Wapping, and Captain Bligh will tell you all about the Bounty. That's if you mean to 'list.

SOME ACCOUNT OF WILLIAM WHISTON.

"That boy is the brother of Pam

JOSEPH ANDREWS.

“WILLIAM certainly is fond of whist!"

This was an admission drawn, or extracted, as Cartwright would say, like a double tooth from the mouth of William's mother; an amiable and excellent lady, who ever reluctantly confessed foibles in her family, and invariably endeavored to exhibit to the world the sunny side of her children.

There can be no possibility of doubt that William was fond of whist. He doted on it. Whist was his first passion, his first love; and in whist he experienced no disappointment. The two were made for each other.

William was one of a large bunch of children, and he never grew up. On his seventh birthday a relation gave him a miniature pack of cards, and made him a whist-player for life. Our bias dates much earlier than some natural philosophers suppose. I remember William, a mere child, being one day William of Orange, and objecting to a St. Michael's because it had no pips.

At school he was a total failure; except in reckoning the odd tricks. He counted nothing by honors, and the schoolmaster said of his head, what he has since said occasionally of his hand, that it "held literally nothing."

At sixteen, after a long maternal debate between the black and red suits, William was articled to an attorney: but instead of becoming a respectable land-shark, he played doubledummy with the Common-Law clerk, and was discharged on the 6th of November. The principal remonstrated with him on a breach of duty, and William imprudently answered that he was aware of his duty, like the ace of spades. Mr. Bitem immediately banged the door against him, and William, for the first time in his life to use his own expression,-"got a slam."

CARDY-MUMS.

William having served his time, and, as he calls it, followed suit for five years, was admitted as an attorney, and began to play at that finessing game, the Law. Short-hand

he still studied and practised; though more in parlors than in court.

William at one period admired Miss Hunt, or Miss Creswick, or Miss Hardy, or Miss Reynolds; a daughter of one of the great cardmakers, I forget which, — and he cut for partners, but without "getting the Lady." His own explanation was, that he "was discarded." He then paid his addresses to a Scotch girl, a Miss MacNab, but she professed religious scruples about cards, and he revoked. I have heard it said that she expected to match higher; indeed William used to say she "looked over his hand."

William is short, and likes shorts. He likes nothing of longs, but the St. John of them: and he only takes to him, because that saint is partial to a rubber. Whist seems to influence his face as well as form; it is like a knave of clubs. I sometimes fancy whist could not go on without William, and certainly William could not go on without whist. His whole conversation, except on cards, is wool-gathering; and on that subject is like wool carded. He "speaks by the card," and never gives equivocation a chance. At the Olympic once he had a quarrel with a gentleman about the lead of Madame Vestris or Miss Sydney: he was required to give his card, and gave the "Deuce of Hearts." This was what he termed "calling out."

Of late years William only goes out, like a bad rushlight, earlyish of a night, and quits every table that is not covered with green baize with absolute disgust. The fairies love by night to "gambol on the green," and so does William, and he is constantly humming with great gusto,

"Come unto these yellow sands,

And then take hands."

The only verses, by the way, he ever got by heart. He never cared to play much with the Muses. They stick, he used to say, at Nine.

William can sit longer, drink less, say as little, pay or receive as much, shuffle as well, and cut as deeply, as any man on earth. You may leave him safely after dinner, and catch him at breakfast-time without alteration of attitude or look. He is a small statue erected in honor of whist, and, like Eloquence, "holds his hand well up." He is content to

ring the changes on thirteen cards a long Midsummer night; for he does not play at cards, he works at them, and, considering the returns, for very low wages. William never was

particularly lucky; but he bears the twos and threes with as much equanimity as any one, and seems, horticulturally speaking, to have grafted Patience upon Whist. I do not know whether it is the family motto, but he has upon his seal with the Great Mogul for a crest - the inscription of "Packs in Bello."

William is now getting old (nearly fifty-two), with an asthma; which he says makes him rather "weak in trumps." He is preparing himself accordingly to "take down his score,' and has made his will, bequeathing all he has or has not to a whist club. His funeral he directs to be quite private, and his gravestone a plain one, and especially "that there be no cherubims carved thereon, forasmuch," says this characteristic document, "that they never hold honors."

He was evidently a foreigner, and poor. As I sat at the opposite corner of the Southgate stage, I took a mental inventory of his wardrobe. A military cloak much the worse for wear, a blue coat, the worse for tear, a napless hat, shirt neither white nor brown, a pair of mud-color gloves,

a

open at each thumb, gray trousers too short for his legs, and brown boots too long for his feet.

From some words he dropt, I found that he had come direct from Paris, to undertake the duties of French teacher at an English academy; and his companion, the English classical usher, had been sent to London, to meet and conduct him to his suburban destination.

an

Poor devil, thought I, thou art going into a bitter bad line of business; and the hundredth share which I had taken in the boyish persecutions of my own French master emigré of the old noblesse smote violently on my conscience. At Edmonton the coach stopped. The coachman alighted, pulled the bell of a mansion inscribed in large letters, Vespasian House, and deposited the foreigner's trunks and boxes on the footpath. The English classical usher stepped briskly out, and deposited a shilling in the coachman's anticipatory hand. Monsieur followed the example, and with some precipitation prepared to enter the gate of the fore-garden, but the driver stood in the way.

"I want another shilling," said the coachman.

"You agreed to take a shilling a-head," said the English

master.

"You said you would take one shilling for my head,” said the French master.

"It's for the luggage," said the coachman.

The Frenchman seemed thunderstruck; but there was no help for it. He pulled out a small weazle-bellied, brown-silk purse, but there was nothing in it save a medal of Napoleon. Then he felt his breast-pockets, then his side-pockets, and then his waistcoat-pockets; but they were all empty, excepting a metal snuff-box, and that was empty too. Lastly he felt the

pockets in the flaps of his coat, taking out a meagre would-be white handkerchief, and shaking it; but not a dump. I rather suspect he anticipated the result, but he went through the operations seriatim, with the true French gravity. At last he turned to his companion, with a "Mistare Barbiere, be as good to lend me one shelling."

Mr. Barber, thus appealed to, went through something of the same ceremony. Like a blue-bottle cleaning itself, he passed his hands over his breast, round his hips, and down the outside of his thighs, but the sense of feeling could detect nothing like a coin.