command of the gig. While the commander was absent, two of the men in the midshipman's charge requested permission to make some trifling purchase. The good-natured officer assented, adding, 'By the way, you may as well buy me some apples and a few pears. 'All right, sir,' said the men; and they departed. The captain presently returned, and still the seamen were away on their errand. They were searched for, but they could not be found: they had deserted: Any naval reader whose eye may wander over this page will readily imagine the disgrace into which Midshipman Douglas Jerrold fell with his captain. Upon the young delinquent the event made a lasting impression, and years afterwards he talked about it with that curious excitement which lit up his face when he spoke of anything he had felt. He remembered even the features of the two deserters, as he had, most unexpectedly, an opportunity of proving. The midshipman had long put his dirk aside, and washed the salt from his brave face. He had become a fighter with a keener weapon than his dirk had ever proved, when one day strolling eastward, possibly from the office of his own newspaper to the printing premises of Messrs. Bradbury and Evans, in Whitefriars, he was suddenly struck with the form and face of a baker, who, with his load of bread at his back, was examining some object in the window of the surgical instrument-maker, who puzzles so many inquisitive passers-by, near the entrance to King's College. There was no mistake; even the flour-dredge could not hide the fact. The exmidshipman walked nimbly to the baker's side, and, rapping him sharply upon the back, said, 'I say, my friend, don't you think you've been rather a long time about that fruit?" The deserter's jaw fell. Thirty years had not calmed the unquiet suggestions of his conscience. He remembered the fruit and the little middy, for he said, 'Lor! is that you, sir?' The midshipman went on his way laughing."

LORD COCHRANE AND DOUGLAS JERROLD.

When the father of young Jerrold was manager of the theatre (the barn) at Sheerness, good company sometimes appeared among the audience. While his ship, the Pallas, lay in Sheerness roadstead, Lord Cochrane (afterwards Earl Dundonald) was often at the play; and he was remembered by the old doorkeeper, not less for his naval renown, than by his good-natured whim of always paying for his box twice. Little Douglas was then a flaxen-haired boy, in whom Lord Cochrane was to find, in after-life, one of the stanchest of his friends and defenders, as acknowledged in the following letter, one of the few preserved by Jerrold :

"8, Chesterfield Street, 10th May, 1847.

"SIR,-Your generous and very powerful advocacy of my claim to the investigation of my case has contributed to promote that act of justice, and produced a decision of the Cabinet Council, after due deliberation, to recommend to Her Majesty my immediate restoration to the Order of the Bath, in which recommendation Her Ma-` jesty has been graciously pleased to acquiesce. I would personally have waited on you confidentially to communicate this (not yet promulgated) decree; but as there is so little chance of finding you, and I am pressingly occupied, I shall postpone that pleasure and duty.-I am, Sir, your obliged and obedient servant,

"Douglas Jerrold, Esq."

"DUNDONALD.

The thousand-pound note with which Lord Cochrane paid the fine inflicted on him when he was found guilty, is, we believe, still preserved in the Bank of England, and bears this endorsement :

My health having suffered by long and close confinement, and my oppressors being resolved to deprive me of my property or life, I submit to robbery to save myself from murder, in the hope that I may live to bring the delinquents to justice."

TABLE-WIT OF DOUGLAS JERROLD.

In repartee, Jerrold excelled most of his contemporaries: he was a man of cheerful nature, who loved to raise a hearty laugh, though the means were sometimes misunderstood and misrepresented. A jest's prosperity often reaches sore places, and causes the hearers to wince: although the jester has not in his mind's eye the persons who take to themselves the fitting cap. Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, in his gracefully-written Life of his father, has recorded the following instances of his ready wit: they are full of point and finish: still, in reading, they have not the instantaneous effect-the flash and fire-which none but those who heard them could fully enjoy. The utter absence of effort in their utterance, or conceit as to their worth, was their great recommendation. Mr. Blanchard Jerrold, loquitur :

"A dinner is discussed. Douglas Jerrold listens quietly, possibly tired of dinners, and declining pressing invitations to be present. In a few minutes he will chime in, 'If an earthquake were to engulf England to-morrow, the English would manage to meet and dine somewhere among the rubbish, just to celebrate the event.' "A friend drops in, and walks across the smoking-room to Douglas Jerrold's chair. The friend wants to enlist Mr. Jerrold's sympathies in behalf of a mutual acquaintance who is in want of a

round sum of money. But this mutual friend has already sent his hat about among his literary brethren on more than one occasion. Mr. -'s hat is becoming an institution, and friends were grieved at the indelicacy of the proceeding. On the occasion to which I now refer, the bearer of the hat was received by my father with evident dissatisfaction. Well,' said Douglas Jerrold, 'how much does want this time? Why, just a four and two noughts will, I think, put him straight,' the bearer of the hat replied.-Jerrold: 'Well, put me down for one of the noughts.'

"An old gentleman, whom I will call Prosy Very, was in the habit of meeting my father, and pouring long pointless stories into his impatient ears. On one occasion Prosy related a long limp account of a stupid practical joke, concluding with the information that the effect of the joke was so potent, he really thought he should have died with laughter.'-Jerrold: 'I wish to heaven you had.'

"The Chain of Events,' playing at the Lyceum Theatre, is mentioned. Humph!' says Douglas Jerrold, 'I'm afraid the manager will find it a door-chain strong enough to keep everybody out of his house.'

"Then some somewhat lack-a-daisical young members drop in. They opine that the club is not sufficiently west; they hint at something near Pall Mall, and a little more style. Douglas Jerrold rebukes them. No, no, gentlemen; not near Pall Mall; we might catch coronets.'

"Another of these young gentlemen, who has recently emerged from the humblest fortune and position, and exulting in the social consideration__ of his new elevation, puts aside his antecedents. Having met Douglas Jerrold in the morning, while on horseback, he ostentatiously says to him, 'Well, you see I'm all right at last!' 'Yes,' is the reply, I see you now ride upon your cat's-meat.'

"The conversation turns upon the fastidiousness of the times. 'Why,' says a member, they'll soon say marriage is improper.' 'No, no,' replies Douglas Jerrold, they'll always consider marriage good breeding.'

"A stormy discussion ensues, during which a gentleman rises to settle the matter in dispute. Waving his hands majestically over the excited disputants, he begins: Gentlemen, all I want is comExactly,' Douglas Jerrold interrupts; that is you do want.' The discussion is lost in a burst of

mon sense

precisely what laughter.

The talk lightly passes to writings of a certain Scot. A member holds that's the Scot's name should be handed down to a grateful

posterity. D. J.: 'I quite agree with you that he should have an itch in the Temple of Fame.'

"Brown drops in. Brown is said, by all his friends, to be the toady of Jones. The appearance of Jones in a room is the proof that Brown is in the passage. When Jones has the influenza, Brown dutifully catches a cold in the head. D. J. to Brown: Have you heard the rumour that's flying about town?' 'No.' 'Well, they say Jones pays the dog-tax for you.'

"Douglas Jerrold is seriously disappointed with a certain book written by one of his friends, and has expressed his disappointment. Friend: "I hear you said was the worst book I ever wrote.'Jerrold: No, I didn't. I said it was the worst book anybody ever

wrote.'

"Of Nelson he would talk by the hour, and some of his more passionate articles were written to scathe the government that left Horatio-Nelson's legacy to his country-in want. It was difficult to persuade him, nevertheless, that a man did wisely in sending his son to sea. A friend called on him one day to introduce a youth, who, smitten with a love for the salt, was about to abandon a position he held in a silk manufacturer's establishment, for the cockpit. "Humph!' said the ex-midshipman of the Ernest, so you're going to sea. To what department of industry, may I inquire, do you now give your exertions?" "Silk,' briefly responded the youth. 'Well, go to sea, and it will be worsted.'"

A supper of sheep's heads is proposed, and presently served. One gentleman present is particularly enthusiastic on the excellence of the dish, and, as he throws down his knife and fork, exclaims, "Well, sheep's heads for ever, say I!"-Jerrold: "There's egotism!"

it."

From Our Club, a social weekly gathering, which Douglas Jerrold attended only three weeks before his death, some of his best sayings went forth to the world. Here, when some member, hearing an air mentioned, exclaimed, "That always carries me away when I hear "Can nobody whistle it?" asked Douglas Jerrold. "My father ordered a bottle of old port; not elder port," he said, Asking about the talent of a young painter, his companion declared that the youth was mediocre. "Oh!" was the reply; "the very worst ochre an artist can set to work with."

66

Walking to the club, with a friend, from the theatre, some intoxicated young gentlemen reeled up to the dramatist, and said, "Can you tell us the way to the Judge and Jury?" Keep on as you are, young gentlemen," was the reply; "you're sure to overtake them."

He took the chair at one of the anniversary dinners of the Eclectic Club-a debating society, consisting of young barristers, authors, and artists. The pièce de resistance had been a saddle of mutton. After dinner, the chairman rose and said, "Well, gentlemen, I trust that the noble saddle we have eaten has grown a woolsack for one among you."

Jerrold defined dogmatism as "puppyism come to maturity."

At a dinner of artists, a barrister present, having his health drunk in connexion with the law, began an embarrassed answer, by saying he did not see how the law could be considered as one of the arts, when Jerrold jerked in the word black, and threw the whole company into convulsions.

"Have you any railway shares?" said Jerrold to a friend, during the mania of 1846. 66 "No," was the reply. "When a river of gold is running by your door," rejoined Jerrold, "why not put out your hat, and take a dip?"

When, in 1854, Jerrold proposed to visit Venice, the Austrian Kaiser forbad. "We have orders not to admit you into any part of the Austrian Empire," said the official to whom Jerrold applied for a passport. "That shows your weakness, not my strength," said the applicant.

"I should, perhaps, not have known dear old Jeremy Taylor so well," said Jerrold to a friend, "if I had been taught as a boy what they teach all the tailors now."

ABSENCE OF MIND.

Lessing, the German author, was, in his old age, subject to extraordinary fits of abstraction. On his return home, one evening, after he had knocked at his door, the servant looked out of the window to see who was there. Not recognising his master in the dark, and mistaking him for a stranger, he called out, "the professor is not at home." "Oh, very well," replied Lessing; "no matterI'll call another time!"

NICE EVASION:

The subject of M. Thiers's parentage was once discussed in his presence, and the question was mooted whether his mother was not a cusiniere (a cook). "She was," he said, apologetically adding, with the view of showing she deserved a higher destiny, "but I assure you she was a very bad one."

MACAULAY'S BOYHOOD.

Many a strong passage in Lord Macaulay's writings shows how familiar he had been with Scripture phraseology in early youth.