LITMIR.BIZ

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windows of the mercers attracted many a purchaser: the glittering panes behind which Birmingham had glazed its simulated silver, induced rustics to pause: although only noon, the savory odors of the Cook Shops tempted the over hungry citizen to the bun of Bath, or to the fragrant potage that mocks the turtle's flavor--the turtle! O dapibus suprimi grata testudo Jovis! I am an Alderman when I think of thee! Well: it was noon in Chepe.

      But were all battling for gain there? Among the many brilliant shops whose casements shone upon Chepe, there stood one a century back (about which period our tale opens) devoted to the sale of Colonial produce. A rudely carved image of a negro, with a fantastic plume and apron of variegated feathers, decorated the lintel. The East and West had sent their contributions to replenish the window.

      The poor slave had toiled, died perhaps, to produce yon pyramid of swarthy sugar marked "ONLY 6 1/2d."--That catty box, on which was the epigraph "STRONG FAMILY CONGO ONLY 3s. 9d," was from the country of Confutzee--that heap of dark produce bore the legend "TRY OUR REAL NUT"--'Twas Cocoa--and that nut the Cocoa-nut, whose milk has refreshed the traveller and perplexed the natural philosopher. The shop in question was, in a word, a Grocer's.

      In the midst of the shop and its gorgeous contents sat one who, to judge from his appearance (though 'twas a difficult task, as, in sooth, his back was turned), had just reached that happy period of life when the Boy is expanding into the Man. O Youth, Youth! Happy and Beautiful! O fresh and roseate dawn of life; when the dew yet lies on the flowers, ere they have been scorched and withered by Passion's fiery Sun! Immersed in thought or study, and indifferent to the din around him, sat the boy. A careless guardian was he of the treasures confided to him. The crowd passed in Chepe; he never marked it. The sun shone on Chepe; he only asked that it should illumine the page he read. The knave might filch his treasures; he was heedless of the knave. The customer might enter; but his book was all in all to him.

      And indeed a customer WAS there; a little hand was tapping on the counter with a pretty impatience; a pair of arch eyes were gazing at the boy, admiring, perhaps, his manly proportions through the homely and tightened garments he wore.

      "Ahem! sir! I say, young man!" the customer exclaimed.

      "Ton d'apameibomenos prosephe," read on the student, his voice choked with emotion. "What language!" he said; "how rich, how noble, how sonorous! prosephe podas--"

      The customer burst out into a fit of laughter so shrill and cheery, that the young Student could not but turn round, and blushing, for the first time remarked her. "A pretty grocer's boy you are," she cried, "with your applepiebomenos and your French and lingo. Am I to be kept waiting for hever?"

      "Pardon, fair Maiden," said he, with high-bred courtesy: "'twas not French I read, 'twas the Godlike language of the blind old bard. In what can I be serviceable to ye, lady?" and to spring from his desk, to smooth his apron, to stand before her the obedient Shop Boy, the Poet no more, was the work of a moment.

      "I might have prigged this box of figs," the damsel said good-naturedly, "and you'd never have turned round."

      "They came from the country of Hector," the boy said. "Would you have currants, lady? These once bloomed in the island gardens of the blue Aegean. They are uncommon fine ones, and the figure is low; they're fourpence-halfpenny a pound. Would ye mayhap make trial of our teas? We do not advertise, as some folks do: but sell as low as any other house."

      "You're precious young to have all these good things," the girl exclaimed, not unwilling, seemingly, to prolong the conversation. "If I was you, and stood behind the counter, I should be eating figs the whole day long."

      "Time was," answered the lad, "and not long since I thought so too. I thought I never should be tired of figs. But my old uncle bade me take my fill, and now in sooth I am aweary of them."

      "I think you gentlemen are always so," the coquette said.

      "Nay, say not so, fair stranger!" the youth replied, his face kindling as he spoke, and his eagle eyes flashing fire. "Figs pall; but oh! the Beautiful never does. Figs rot; but oh! the Truthful is eternal. I was born, lady, to grapple with the Lofty and the Ideal. My soul yearns for the Visionary. I stand behind the counter, it is true; but I ponder here upon the deeds of heroes, and muse over the thoughts of sages. What is grocery for one who has ambition? What sweetness hath Muscovada to him who hath tasted of Poesy? The Ideal, lady, I often think, is the true Real, and the Actual, but a visionary hallucination. But pardon me; with what may I serve thee?"

      "I came only for sixpenn'orth of tea-dust," the girl said, with a faltering voice; "but oh, I should like to hear you speak on for ever!"

      Only for sixpenn'orth of tea-dust? Girl, thou camest for other things! Thou lovedst his voice? Siren! what was the witchery of thine own? He deftly made up the packet, and placed it in the little hand. She paid for her small purchase, and with a farewell glance of her lustrous eyes, she left him. She passed slowly through the portal, and in a moment was lost in the crowd. It was noon in Chepe. And George de Barnwell was alone.

      Vol. II.

      We have selected the following episodical chapter in preference to anything relating to the mere story of George Barnwell, with which most readers are familiar.

      Up to this passage (extracted from the beginning of Vol. II.) the tale is briefly thus:

      The rogue of a Millwood has come back every day to the grocer's shop in Chepe, wanting some sugar, or some nutmeg, or some figs, half a dozen times in the week.

      She and George de Barnwell have vowed to each other an eternal attachment.

      This flame acts violently upon George. His bosom swells with ambition. His genius breaks out prodigiously. He talks about the Good, the Beautiful, the Ideal, &c., in and out of all season, and is virtuous and eloquent almost beyond belief--in fact like Devereux, or P. Clifford, or E. Aram, Esquires.

      Inspired by Millwood and love, George robs the till, and mingles in the world which he is destined to ornament. He outdoes all the dandies, all the wits, all the scholars, and all the voluptuaries of the age--an indefinite period of time between Queen Anne and George II.--dines with Curll at St. John's Gate, pinks Colonel Charteris in a duel behind Montague House, is initiated into the intrigues of the Chevalier St. George, whom he entertains at his sumptuous pavilion at Hampstead, and likewise in disguise at the shop in Cheapside.

      His uncle, the owner of the shop, a surly curmudgeon with very little taste for the True and Beautiful, has retired from business to the pastoral village in Cambridgeshire from which the noble Barnwells came. George's cousin Annabel is, of course, consumed with a secret passion for him.

      Some trifling inaccuracies may be remarked in the ensuing brilliant little chapter; but it must be remembered that the author wished to present an age at a glance: and the dialogue is quite as fine and correct as that in the "Last of the Barons," or in "Eugene Aram," or other works of our author, in which Sentiment and History, or the True and Beautiful, are united.

      CHAPTER XXIV.

      BUTTON'S IN PALL MALL.

      Those who frequent the dismal and enormous Mansions of Silence which society has raised to Ennui in that Omphalos of town, Pall Mall, and which, because they knock you down with their dulness, are called Clubs no doubt; those who yawn from a bay-window in St. James's Street, at a half-score of other dandies gaping from another bay-window over the way; those who consult a dreary evening paper for news, or satisfy themselves with the jokes of the miserable Punch by way of wit; the men about town of the present day, in a word, can have but little idea of London some six or eight score years back. Thou pudding-sided old dandy of St. James's Street, with thy lacquered boots, thy dyed whiskers, and thy suffocating waistband, what art thou to thy brilliant predecessor in the same quarter? The Brougham from which thou descendest at the portal of the "Carlton" or the "Travellers'," is like everybody else's; thy black coat has no more plaits, nor buttons, nor fancy in it than thy neighbor's; thy hat was made on the very block on which Lord Addlepate's was cast, who

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