THE CONFESSIONS OF A BLUE BAG.

I LATELY went to consult with an old friend, a chamber counsel in the Temple, whose judgment being matured by much experience of the world, I find his opinion extremely valuable even in matters unconnected with his profession. As he was engaged when I arrived at his chambers, I was shewn into his anti-room, where, among other oldfashioned furniture, I noticed an arm-chair with a high cane back, surmounted with two knobs, on one of which a law-bag was suspended. I drew the seat with its appendage rather near to the fire, and resting my feet on the fender, and reclining in the chair, what with the warmth of the situation, the somnolence of my posture, and the darkness of the room, which looked into a narrow court, it is very probable that I dropt asleep; though what passed in my mind seemed to bear the impress of wakeful reality. I thought that as my ear came in contact with the string of the bag, I heard myself addressed in a small and hollow voice -"Mister-Sir-lend me your ears, if you please;" and on looking towards the spot whence the sound proceeded, I observed the mouth of the bag to be in motion. I immediately became all attention, and listened to the following narrative, which was delivered with something of a forensic emphasis.

"As I am now hanging by a very frail thread, and expect whenever that gives way, to be handed over to the piece-broker for dissection, it seems incumbent upon me, before I bid adieu to my present abode, to make my confessions; and I think myself happy, Mr. Merton, in having such a medium as yourself"-I begged him to spare my editorial modesty." Well, Sir," continued the Bag, "I have come to this determination, in deference to the eminent examples of this kind, with which the world has of late been so wonderfully edified. Those confessions must be my apology as they shall be my precedents, excepting only that I shall adhere to the facts of my case, and state them as briefly as possible, under existing circumstances.

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"I am descended of the Woollens, an ancient and a numerous family, many of whom have held high appointments in the public offices, and have been intrusted with more state secrets than perhaps are known even to the keeper of his Majesty's conscience. But our reputation, Sir, is too well established to require any eulogium from me. The hardness of the times, however, rendered it necessary for myself and others of the family to be sent up to this town for the purpose of making a provision for ourselves and after two or three removes, we thought ourselves comfortably settled in the house of a robe-maker in Chancery Lane. But alas! as if to shew the vanity of sublunary security, in one fatal hour I was cruelly severed from all my nearest and dearest ties. Those fine cords which united me to a long line of Woollens, were cut, once and for ever, and I soon found myself cut out for the profession of the law. The stupor which came upon me after this calamity, rendered me quite insensible to all that passed around me, but after a short interval, recovered my consciousness sufficiently to perceive that I had undergone an entire transformation; that I had become possessed of a string, of an inside and an outside; that I had a mouth susceptible of extension, and a capacity of no contemptible dimensions. In a word, that instead of being a mere piece of stuff, I was a Bag.

"I now felt agitated with a variety of new emotions, I panted to have my capacity exerted to the utmost, and to become the depository of legal

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knowledge. Nor was it long before I had the happiness to change the idle inanity which I was doomed awhile to endure on the shelf of the robe-maker's shop, for the service of a young gentleman, who having duly eaten his way, had just been called to the bar. I arrived at his chambers soon after the arrival of his new gown and wig, in which he was no sooner attired, than pulling hold of me by the cord, with the familiarity of an old acquaintance, he strutted and flourished about with me before his looking-glass mightily pleased with his own appearance, for the completeness, of which I must confess that I think he was not a little indebted to me. I felt as you may suppose, Sir, all impatience to be filled with legal lore, but when the morning came, a most woeful disappointment awaited me: after having my mouth opened wide enough to admit a whole library, I received nothing more than a volume of Term Reports, the last number of the Quarterly, a note-book, and a few fair sheets of foolscap. Intrusted with these, I was taken to Westminster, handed in and out of the courts; up and down the spacious and magnificent hall; and then brought back to chambers at night, during a whole Term, and the sittings after it, without any other incident than being occasionally opened and shut for the egress and ingress of the aforesaid Review. My second term was marked by no variation, except the receipt and discharge of a common motion-paper, which brought half-a-guinea to my master's pocket, but added little to my information.

"The Winter Assizes were now approaching, and I hoped for better fortune on the Circuit. We went the Norfolk Circuit-but here again disappointment awaited me. Judge what must be the mortification of a Bag desiring to be filled with the choicest stores of legal reading, finding itself crammed to repletion with a Barrister's gown, and all and singular his wearing apparel. Never did I more regret that I had not a tongue proportioned to my mouth; then should I have remonstrated with becoming loudness and severity, on the indignities to which I was subjected. However, I was presently relieved from these odious commodities, and tolerably well filled with odd volumes of law, with which I was paraded about from town to town until we reached that at which the circuit was to terminate. I now began to despair of ever having the honour to hold a brief,' and so, I believe, did my poor master.

"But, as his good fortune would have it, he happened to have some connexions in the neighbourhood of this town, who having an ejectment cause for trial, had directed a brief to be delivered to him, accompanied with a handsome fee. As such an event was an entire novelty to him, he sat up nearly the whole of the preceding night to put himself in possession of the case, and to fortify himself with authorities in its support. The next morning was the proudest of my life. The brief, enriched with annotations, was treasured up within me, and, moved with delight at the confidence reposed in me, I swang about with an elasticity which added a wonderful importance to the air of my master, who entered the court where civil causes were tried, as if he had been big with the fate of Cæsar and of Rome." When the cause of Doe on the demise of Good-title versus No-title,' was called on, Sergeant Slinky, who was to lead, did not appear court, the officer was sent to the Crown-court to see if he were there, and messengers were dispatched to the neighbouring 'taverns in quest of him: but no Sergeant Slinky could be found. At length, the court, growing impatient with delay, it devolved upon

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my master to proceed with the cause. Notwithstanding he was com pletly master of it, and we really had the right side of the question, he stood aghast, and looked as if he knew nothing about the matter. His hands trembled and roved about, he knew not wither, until, fortunately for his client, and for the purposes of justice, he caught hold of me by the cord, which he no sooner grasped, than he recovered himself so far as to look his Lordship in the face, and make him a respectful bow; upon which, receiving a gracious nod of encouragementwhich all our judges are wont to bestow upon the different Tyro-he proceeded to say, 'May it please your Lordship, and gentlemen of the jury'-a-hem. Then twisting the string into a true lover's knot, he was imboldened to proceed. This he did slowly enough at first, still holding my cord very tightly, and twisting it into all sorts of quirls and contortions. At last he grew bolder, and holding me by one hand only, he began to lash the desk before him as the furor of his eloquence approached; by which exercise he raised no little dust from the row of all-important wigs within the bar. Towards the conclusion of his address he grew so violent and impassioned, that, in a hapless moment, he let go my string altogether, and down I fell to the ground. By the fall 1 received a severe contusion; but that was nothing compared with the kicks I received from my master. Think what must have been my feelings, Mr. Merton, on being thus ungratefully and indignantly degraded, kicked, trampled upon, literally used by the man I had so signally befriended, at his utmost need;' used, Sir, to wipe his shoes upon.

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"It is my misfortune, with all my capacity, to have a very slender memory; could I now recall one half the learning I have, in my time possessed, I might defy the competition of the most profound of our lawyers; but so it has ever been with me, that no sooner was my mouth opened, and myself turned topsy-turvy, than my old fund of acquirements came pouring out, leaving me as flat and as empty as if I had never been master of a syllable. But the treatment of that hour I shall never forget: indeed I cannot. In it I lost the freshness of youth and beauty, and received the germs of those rents and ruptures which time has too effectually helped to widen; until I am reduced to that last stage of wretchedness, and tatters, which renders me daily apprehensive of being discarded by my present owner. Thenceforward I no longer felt any interest in the service of one who had so grossly abused and assaulted me. It is true, he raised my drooping form from the ground, and brushed the dust from me, when he had gained his cause; but these attentions came too late-I held both him and them in detestation. I gave myself up to revenge, determined to gratify it let the cost be whatever it might.

[To be continued.]

EDDA.

In the Edda, the sacred book of the Danes, the punishment of the wicked is thus described :- There is an abode remote from the sun, the gates of which face the north; poison rains there through a thousand openings; this place is all composed of the carcasses of serpents; there run certain torrents in which are plunged the perjurers, assassins, and those who seduce unarmed women; a black dragon flies incessantly around, and devours the bodies of the wretched who are there imprisoned.”

REGINALD DALTON AND ELLEN HESKETH.

The following exquisite scene is taken from the novel of Reginald Dalton,*-a work which we should have reviewed in due form, had we not been tempted in our perusal of it, to mark so many passages for transcription, that we should greatly have exceeded our limits, if we had persisted in our first intention. The hero is a spirited English youth, of good family, of bright parts, and sound education. His history exhibits a variety of striking incidents; such as do not, indeed, happen every day, but which might happen to any one of like character, under similiar circumstances. While at the University, he cherishes an ardent passion for the beautiful Ellen Hesketh, concerning whom he knows nothing distinctively' but that she is beautiful.

He found one of the gates" (of Godstowe Abbey) "unlocked, and stood within the wide circuit of those gray and mouldering walls, that still marks the limits of all the old nunnery. The low moss-covered fruit-trees of the monastic orchard, flung soft and deep shadows upon the unshorn turf below: the ivy hung in dark slumbering masses from every ruinous fragment; the little rivulet, which winds through the guarded precincts, shrunk far within its usual bound, trickled audibly from pebble to pebble. Reginald followed its course to the archway, beneath which it gushes into the Isis-but there his steps were arrested. He heard it distinctly-it was but a single verse, and it was sung very lowly-but no voice, save that of Ellen Hesketh, could have poured out those soft and trembling tones.

"He listened for a few moments, but the voice was silent. He then advanced again between the thick umbrageous trees, until he had come within sight of the chapel itself, from which, it seemed to him the sounds had proceeded. Again they were heard-again the same sweet and melancholy strain echoed from within the damp arches, and shook the stillness of the desolate garden, Here, then, she was, and it was to find her he had come thither; yet now a certain strange, mysterious, fearfulness crept over all his mind, and he durst not, could . not, proceed.

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He lay down prostrate among the long grass, which, so deep was the shade above, yet retained the moisture of the last night's dew, and' thence gazing wistfully upon the low door of the dismantled chapel, he drank the sorrowful melody timidly, breathlessly, in pain, and yet in luxury.

"Again it was silent-a thousand perplexing agonizing thoughts hovered around and above him-he could not toss them away from him he could not forget them. They were there, and they were stronger than he, and he felt himself to be their slave and their prisoner. But their fetters, though within view, had not yet chained up all his spirit; the gloom overhung, but had not overwhelmed him; the pressure had not squeezed him with all its iron strength. No-the sense

of misery, the keenest of all, had communicated its feverish and morbid quickness to that which it could not expel-Love, timorous, hopeless love, had caught a sort of infectious energy, and the long suppressed flame glowed with a stern and desperate steadfastness, amidst the darkness which had deepened around its altars. Next moment, how

By the same Author of Valerius and Adam Blair, 3 vols, W. Blackwood, Edinburgh, and T. Cadell, London, 1824.

ever, that energy was half extinguished in dejection;-the flame still burnt intensely- but lowly as of old.

"Alas!' he said to himself, I shall never hear her again-I am ruined, undone, utterly undone-blasted in the very openingwithered on the threshold! Humiliation, pain, misery, lie before me, as surely as folly, madness, frenzy, wickedness, are behind as surely as shame, burning, intolerable, shame is with me now. Yet one feeling at least is pure-here I have worshipped innocence in innocence. Alas! it is here-here, above all-that I am to suffer! Miserable creature that I am! She is feeble, yet I have no arm to protect her; she is friendless, yet the heart that is hers, and hers only, dare not even pour itself at her feet. She is alone in her purity; I alone in sinful, self-created helplessness! Love, frenzy of frenzies, dream of dreams! what have I to do with love?-Why do I haunt her footsteps? why do I pollute the air she breaths?-how dare I to mingle the groans of guilty despair with those tender sighs?-Beautiful, spotless angel! -what have I to do in bringing my remorseful gloom into the home of your virtuous tears, your gentle sorrows!-How shall I dare to watch with you-with you-beside the pillow of a good man's sickness?-Shame! shame!-let me flee from him, from you-from all but myself and my misery.'

He had started from his wet lair-he stood with a cheek of scarlet, an eye darkly flashing, and a lip of steadfast whiteness, gazing on the ivied ruin, like one who gazes his last. At that moment Ellen's sweet voice once more thrilled upon his ear. It seemed as if the melody was coming nearer-another moment, and she had stepped beyond the threshold. She advanced towards a part of the wall which was much decayed, and stood quite near the speechless and motionless youth, looking down upon the calm waters of Isis gliding just below her, and singing all the while the same air he had first heard from her lips.-Alas! if it sounded sorrowfully then, how deep was now the sorrow breathed from that subdued and broken warbling of

'The Rhine! the Rhine! be blessings on the Rhine!'

She leaned herself over the low green wall, and Reginald heard a sob struggle against the melody. She grieves,' he said to himself she grieves, she weeps!' and with that, loosing all mastery of himself, he rushed through the thicket.

"Ellen hearing the rustling of the leaves, and the tramp of a hasty foot, turned towards the boy, who stopped short upon reaching the open turf. Her first alarm was gone, when she recognised him; and she said, a faint smile hovering on her lips, Mr. Dalton, I confess I was half frightened-How and whence have you come?' Ere she had finished the sentence, however, her soft eye had instinctively retreated from the wild and distracted gaze of Reginald-she shrunk a step backward, and re-echoed her own question in a totally different tone - Mr. Dalton, how are you here?-whence have you come ?-You alarm me, Mr. Dalton-your looks alarm me. Speak why do you look so?'

"Miss Hesketh,' he answered, striving to compose himself, there is nothing to alarm you--I have just come from Witham-Mr. Keith told me you were here.'

"You are ill Mr. Dalton-you look exceedingly ill, indeed, sir, You should not have left Oxford to-day-'