CHARLES GLIB has one peculiarity that distingishes him from every other bustling chattering inhabitant of this blabbing world. In the course of a pretty long life he has never been known to reveal a single secret -for nobody ever trusted him with one. He is the very opposite of that celebrated lover of taciturnity, who having walked twenty miles with an equally silent companion, not a syllable having escaped the lips of either, exclaimed, in acknowledgment of his friend's observation, on arriving at a cross-road, that the left would be the best path to take, "What a talkative fellow you are!" Glib is, to an equal degree, a lover of loquacity. The sound of his own voice is to him the music of the spheres. Other people have their fits of sullenness and reserve he never has. Other people pause to take breath, which he never does. Other people like to chatter away only on their favorite themes-their own rheumatics, or their neighbor's extravagance-but no topic ever came amiss to Charley Glib. He never sinks into taciturnity, merely because he happens to have exhausted all the scandal of the neighborhood, and trumpeted his own perfections of mind and body in fifty different keys. Such silence is simply the natural consequence of over-talking to which ordinary folks are liable; but, as for Glib, he still goes on, still finds something to say, even when he has torn his grandmother's reputation to tatters, and related the history, with all the minutest particulars, of his last cold in the head. While there are words to be uttered, a subject is never wanting. The words bring the thoughts, or he talks without them. He is nothing if not loquacious-he associates death with silence. To talk is to enjoy ;-the original bird of paradise was, in his judgment, the Talking bird, and should be so described by every ornithologist. As there is good in every thing, there is convenience in this clack, for it puts us on our guard, and warns us to keep our secrets to ourselves. One would as soon think of pouring wine into a sieve, as of intrusting precious tidings to his keeping. Whatever is published at Charing-cross, or advertised in the morning papers, there can be no harm in communicating to Glib; but for any thing of a more confidential character, VOL. II. No. III. 27 it would be just as wise to whisper it to the four winds of heaven. A secret indeed is a pearl which it were egregious folly to cast before such an animal. Secrets are utterly wasted upon your great, loud, constant, unthinking talkers. They are delicacies never truly relished by people of large appetites for speech, who can utter any thing, and who fare sumptuously on immense heaps of stale news of the coarsest nature. Their palates are vitiated by vast indulgence, and their ravenous hunger after the joys of holding forth, forbids the possibility of a keen fine taste, the nice and exquisite relish of an original secret. If they can but relate to you something particularly well known about Martin Luther or Queen Elizabeth, provided there is enough of it to ensure them a full meal, they are as contented and as happy as though they had a hundred dainty little secrets to disclose, every one of them profound, startling, and hitherto close kept. Yorick gave the ass a macaroon, but we do not find that the experiment succeeded much-the beast would no doubt have preferred thistles. No, no; a secret is delicious food for the man of a sly, quiet, seemingly reserved turn of mind, who does not talk much, but speaks to the purpose; who has no overweening fondness for the sound of his own voice, but who fervently loves a breach of confidence; who feels that pleasures are a thousand times sweeter for being stolen ; and who, while quietly disclosing some important and interesting fact of which, with many injunctions to keep it ever under lock and key, he had been the depository, is not only sensible of a relief in freeing the mind from its secret burden, but conscious of a superadded charm, the pleasure of betraying a verbal trust. Just such a man is he who now passes my window, Peter Still. He is well-known to half the town, although his voice was never heard by any two people in it at the same time. He has whispered in the ears of a vast mob, taking each individual sepa. rately; and he has made a large portion of London his especial confidant, by catching the people who compose it, each by his button, at some season or other, and committing a precious secret exclusively to his care. Every one of that great talking multitude looks upon himself as the sole-selected sharer of the secrets which Peter Still once held solitary in his own bosom; and each is furthermore convinced, that for caution, closeness, trustworthiness-the power of keeping a thing entirely to himself until the proper moment arrives for discreetly whispering it to a valued friend-Peter Still has not his fellow either in the parish of St. Giles or of St. James-nor in any parish between the celebrated two which mark the wide extremes of the metropolis. Nobody would suppose that beneath his most placid, passionless demeanor, an agony of curiosity was raging-that amidst so much dignified composure, he was actually dying to hear your story; as little could it be imagined when he presses your hand at parting, with your solemn secret locked up in his soul, never to be revealed even in a whisper to himself, that he is dying to disclose it to the first babbler he may meet. And to look at Peter, to observe his manner, to hear him talk, you would decide that all the town was individually right-however the mob of confidants, on comparing But although like Hamlet's, his heart their means of judging one with the other, would break if he were condemned to hold might collectively pronounce a different his tongue-although he must unfold the verdict. His appearance begets an impres- delicious but intolerable mystery, the faithsion that the rack would have no power to ful keeping of which would drive him unseal his lips, and wring from him the im- mad-yet he never falls to a rash promisportant secret you had confided to him cuous chattering upon the subject-he is some time before-how Miss Jane in her not open-mouthed when he meets youvexation had written a smart copy of verses he never volunteers the prohibited stateon Mr. Wimple's nuptials-or how your ment without a why or wherefore. The wife had promised to favor you with a ninth breach is never effected in this way— heir to your books and teaspoons. No, Well, I declare, this meeting is fortuthese deep and awful secrets, once whis-nate. You must know I called at the Cot pered in that close man's ear, must, you tage yesterday, and there I heard-no, I would swear, lie buried there for ever. never was so astonished! Our friend, the Though faithful to the Catholic church, he farmer, told me of it in the strictest confiwould die unshriven rather than confess dence-the very strictest-such a secret!" them to his priest-so say appearances. "Did he? What is it?" And yet, really and truly, when you have published the two events alluded to in the close ear of Peter Still, you may as well, as far as publicity is concerned, send the verses on Mr. W.'s nuptials to be printed, addressed to the Editor of the New Monthly; and having the pen still at your finger's end-draw up the form of an advertisement, in readiness, to appear hereafter properly filled up among the births in the morning paper "On the th instant, in the lady of of a -" street, Peter Still's various powers commence with the faculty of attracting people to confide in him. You look in his face, and unbosom. His seems no sieve-like nature, and to it you intrust your most delicate secrets, convinced that they will never run through. He never asks for your confidence he never seeks to worm himself into your faith and esteem-but he quietly wins you to speak out, and communicate to him what was only known to yourself. If you hesitate, and say, "Perhaps, after all, the matter had better never be mentioned-no, not even to you!" he calmly agrees, and advises you to confine the secret to your own breast, where it is sure to be safe; well knowing that a man who meditates the disclosure of a secret can have no spur like a dissuader, and that he will immediately after tell you every word. "Why then you must know—" And out comes all the story-not with many additions, perhaps, on this occasion, as it is only one day old. This is the common style of the common world; where the "What is it?" as naturally follows the mention of a secret told in the strictest confidence, as extensive publi city follows the first dishonorable disclosure. But this is not the style of Peter Still. He never loses sight of form and ce. remony-never enlightens an inquirer on such easy terms. Though more anxious to tell you than you can be to hear, he dal lies and procrastinates. Though burning to accomplish the revelation, he seems ice. He compresses his lips, and drops his eyelids-shakes his head very slowly, and is tremendously emphatic with his forefinger, which always seems to point a moral when he is most violating morality. At last, when the mixture of mysterious signs, unintelligible sounds, and stray syl lables, are duly mingled, the charm begins to work, and the secret bubbles up. Depend upon it, he makes much of it. His secrets are secrets. Impressed and edified you cannot fail to be, whatever may be the disclosure. Perhaps it may be a thing of very trifling import-that Q. is going to give up his town-house-that X., unknown to X.'s wife, has a nice little flaxen-haired boy at school near Turnham Green-that Z., or some other letter of the social alphabet, intends to pay his debts;-no matter for the intelligence, it oozes from Peter Still as though it were dear as the ruddy drops That visit his sad heart. Who could possibly suppose that such an impersonation of the prudential and the discreet as Peter seems-a creature so calm, close, cautious-so thoroughly safe, so every-way to be relied on-was as hollow as a fife, which cannot be intrusted with a little of one's breath without speaking. The secret which we cannot confide to the talkative, we often repose with greater peril in the reserved. Every word is a nail driven into your memory to fasten the fact there; and although he had only told you in his impressive way, and with a painful sense of moral responsibility, that two sheriffs will certain ly be chosen in Guildhall next year, yet you are satisfied for a time that he has sur-tended for the public ear; but Peter Still rendered a secret worth knowing. But whatever he may choose to reveal, he is sure to leave you with the impression-this is invariable-that he has concealed more than he has discovered. Hav. ing told all, and a little besides, he stops short-and desires you to excuse him. When perchance he has related in all its particulars the very secret that you could have told him, and when he has found this out, he makes a sudden pause, puts on a much-meaning look, and regrets that the rest is incommunicable-a something which he dares not disclose. And above all, does Peter Still preserve the spirit of secrecy, in constantly enjoining, with a solemnity befitting his character, every erring mortal, in whose ear he whispers a bit of forbidden news, never for his life to divulge it. What he has acquired gravely and anxiously, he never parts with lightly. He may tell the secret to fifty persons in a day-but then he tells it only to the discreet and each one registers the vow of secrecy before he is intrusted with the treasure; so that when Peter has informed five hundred, he feels that he has informed but one. Charley Glib walks and chatters about town, labelled "Dangerous," to warn off every unwary whisperer of tidings not in appears, of all vehicles for the carrying of secrets, the "patent safety," and we intrust life and limb to him. With Loquacity we run no risk-with Reserve we are ruined. Confiding in Glib, we know that we cast our secret upon the stream, and it is borne away upon the first flowing tide of words into the wide ocean of babble, where it is lost in an overwhelming din which nobody listens to; confiding in Peter Still, we equally cast our secret upon the stream, whence it is conveyed through innumerable water-pipes, intersecting every quarter of the town, and is laid on at every house. The most sly and circumspect betrayer of confidence is liable to make mistakes. The liar needs a good memory, so does the secret-monger who tells truth when he should not. One of the greatest calamities to which he is liable, is a confusion of persons, arising out of a multiplicity of confidences, which is very apt to bring him round with his profound secret, after he has travelled over the whole town to tell it, to the source whence he originally derived it-and to lead him into the fatal blunder of retailing it confidentially to the very man who had first in confidence retailed it to him. It was by such a blunder of memory that I first found out Peter Still-first discovered that although he seemed "close as oak," he was in reality porous all over;incapable of retaining a private fact, even though it should happen to be that he himself was Mrs. Brownrigg's grandson. No man was ever more sincere than Peter Still is, in delivering these injunctions and admonitions. When he beseeches you not to tell again-when he implores you to keep a Chubb's patent on your lips-be sure that he is in earnest ;-for a secret diffused all over the town is a secret gone, and when every body can reveal it to every body else, why it follows that there is nobody left for him to betray it to exclusively. He accepts a secret as he accepts a bill of exchange, deeming it of greatest use when put into circulation; but he does not wish it to go quite out of date, before he says, "Don't let it go any further." He is like those poets who print their verses "By the way," he remarked to me three to circulate amongst friends-who pub-weeks afterwards, "as we are talking of lish privately; so Peter publishes his se- friend Hectic, I may whisper to you confidentially" (and here his voice took an in crets. "It must go no further," said I to him innocently one day; "but since you are speaking with such interest of our friend the Rev. Mr. Hectic, I must tell you-and to you only shall I mention it, in strict confidence-that he is now very decidedly imbued with Puseyite opinions." which, in its character of suspicion, is as mischievous as certainty. ward and most significant tone), "that the clergyman in question discovers of late a decided leaning to the principles of Pu- Or, if hints of this nature be conscienseyism." tiously withheld, there are nods and shrugs, Peter Still, the sly dog, conceives himself expressive looks, and explanatory gestures; to be far from destitute of a defence, should and when the true guess is at last made, these charges of betrayal of trust be ever there comes, to crown every other consistcast in his teeth. His answer to the accu-ency, a positive refusal to afford the least sation of publishing secrets will doubtless further clew!-a virtuous and fixed deterbe, that he never promised concealment ; mination not to say whether the guess be and it is very true-he never did. right or wrong!—which is all that the successful discoverer requires. No; when you desire him to understand that you speak with him in confidence, he It is amongst this class, the largest and makes no comment; he utters no assurance most frequently encountered, that dangers of secrecy; but he just throws out his hand are most thickly sown. Promises of seloosely, and with the back of it taps your crecy, though well-intentioned and firm, elbow, or, perhaps, with a superior smile, here travel over pitfalls, and the most faithgives you one or two light pats between ful are swallowed up when entirely confithe shoulders. The effect is electrical; dent in their own integrity. People who the action has the air of an oath registered are selfish in every thing besides, are unselfin heaven, and you feel what a comforting ish in secrets, and cannot bear to keep thin it is to deal with a man who never speaks but when words are wanted. There is an old saying, undeniably true, that if three people are to keep a secret, two of them should never know it. One of these two should be Peter Still, that respectable moralist, who holds curiosity in contempt and keeps such a guard upon his tongue. The other must belong to the class represented by our loquacious acquaintance-a class that might take warning by the hero of Wordsworth's ballad, "Harry Blake," whose teeth are chattering to this hour Chatter, chatter, chatter still. them to themselves. They are seized with a desire to please persons whom they do not like and have no faith in, and to commit a grievous offence against others whom they do like and who have faith in them. If they do not at once yield up the whole treasure they were to guard, they divest themselves piecemeal of the care of it. To keep it sacredly and entire, is to sink under an overwhelming sensation, a crushing consciousness. No matter how trivial the thing is, it becomes weighty if committed exclusively to their keeping; and the very same fact which mentioned openly and carelessly would be utterly insignifi cant in their estimation, swells in its charBut the danger of being betrayed-betray-acter of a secret, into "a burden more ed perhaps in some tender point of confi- than they can bear." dence, and that without the smallest atom of malignity, or even unkindness-does not exist only in these two directions. There are myriads of good, trustworthy people, who never in all their lives revealed in so many words a secret confided to them nor indeed ever employed words at all in telling it and yet it is as good as told. This is the middle compound class of betrayers, the great bulk of society; who, although they would all die rather than openly disclose what they have faithfully promised to conceal, will nevertheless frankly tell you that there is a secret, and that they happen to know it. Then perhaps, on another occasion, when a little off their guard, they will hazard an allusion to a place, or a person, or a dateor to some circumstance on which the speculative listener is able to establish a tolerably fair guess at the concealed fact, or at the very least to build up a theory Every little secret is thus of some consequence; while the really important one acquires, under this state of feeling, such an insupportable weight and magnitude as not to admit of being safely kept by less than twenty persons at the least. Where so very few can keep a secret quite close, however honorably engaged to do so, and where the tendency to whisper in half words, even when the interests of confiding friends are concerned, so fatally prevails, it is strange that the trumpeters of their own merits never hit upon the expediency of conveying their self-praises in the wide and sure vehicle of a secret. Trust a bit of scandal to a whisper, and how fast and far it flies-because it is whispered. Might not the good deeds, for which so very few can obtain the desired credit, become equally celebrated-might not the fame of them be so wide-spread, if instead of making no secret of them, we in trusted them to the ever-circulating medi- |the very act a verbal confession of its own um of secrecy! unutterable falsehood. The secret so bePeople fall into the capital mistake of trayed should be published as a lie. publishing to all the world their private Let it moreover be some consolation to virtues, their benevolence, disinterested-think that there are more people incapable ness, and temperance; but what if they of a breach of confidence, than those were to keep the reputation of these noble who, like the prince of praters, Charles qualities in the background, and just per- Glib, never had a secret intrusted to mit a friend to whisper the existence of them in their lives. One of them I met them as a great secret, respecting which this morning-it was a friend to whom, of every lip was to be henceforth sealed! all others, every man would feel safe in Universal circulation must ensue. confiding his private griefs, the dearest se Let it be once stated, in strict confi-crets of his soul. dence, that you stripped off your great-coat on a winter night, and wrapped it round a shivering, homeless wanderer, and the town will soon ring with your deeds of philanthropy but the little incident must always be related as a profound secret, or its progress towards the popular ear will be slow. Such is the natural tendency of a secret to get into general circulation, and to secure the privilege of continual disclosure, that it will even carry the heavy virtues with it, and obtain popularity for desert. The gallery of the moral graces is a whispering gallery. It is now "After the stab I have just received," cried I, encountering my friend, "in a base betrayal of confidence, how pleasant to fix my trusting eyes once more upon such a face as yours-the face which is the mirror of your mind, but without revealing any one thing that requires to be concealed in its close and friendly recesses. fifteen years since I intrusted to your sympathizing bosom that dreadful and most secret story of my quarrel in Malta, and of my sudden flight-of the monstrous but reiterated charge of murder that dogged my steps, through so many cities of Europe, and cast upon my onward path a shadow-" "Eh! what! The title of the old comedy written by a woman makes it a wonder that a woman should keep a secret; the real wonder is, that man should ever have had the desperate "Yes," said I, in continuation, with a assurance to assume a superiority, to claim fervent, a most exalted sense of the steady a more consistent fidelity, in such engage-affection which had kept my youthful se ments. The sexes are doubtless well-cret unwhispered, undreamed of by the matched, and the ready tongue finds a most curious, the most insidious scrutineer ready ear. How many of those who stand, and will ever stand most firmly and strongly by our side in the hard battle of life, are weak in this delicate respect! How much of the divine love that redeems our clay from utter grossness, the hallowed affection that knits together the threads of two lives in one, is sullied and debased by this mortal frailty the propensity to whisper when the heart prompts silence-to breathe, by the mere force of habit, into an indifferent or a curious ear, some inklings of the secret which the hushed soul should have held sacred and incommunicable for ever. -with an idolatrous admiration of the constancy and the delicacy of the fine mind and the warm heart on which I had so wisely relied "yes," I exclaimed, "fifteen or sixteen years have elapsed since I committed to your holy keeping the ghastly secret, and not even in your sleep have you allowed a single syllable of the awful nar. rative to escape you! Who, after this, shall so far belie his fellow, as to say that a 'secret is never so safe as in one's own bosom." "What you say, my dear fellow," returned this faithful possessor of my confidence, "is quite right: but I don't exactly know what you are talking about; for upon my soul, to tell you the truth, I had entirely forgotten the whole affair, having never bestowed a thought upon it from that day to this!" Let us, however, do justice to the just, and wish they were not the minority in the matter of keeping secrets. Let us even spare the weakness that errs through accidental temptation, so long as it does not degenerate into the vice that wilfully betrays. Let us remember how the crime of treachery carries with it its own punish-ed ment; and how the abject thing that deliberately reveals what was confided to it in reliance upon its honor, makes in ORDER OF THE BATH-Her Majesty' has appointhis Royal Highness Prince Albert to be the First and Principal Knight Grand Cross, and also Acting Bath, in the room of his late Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex.-Britannia. Great Master of the Most Honorable Order of the |