motion, and quite free, and disconnected with the ground upon which they are depicted," answered Louisa.

"I am glad you have directed your attention to an appearance which has much puzzled wiser heads than our own," observed Mr Seymour.

"I also have heard that some difference of opinion exists as to the exact cause of this illusion," said Miss Villers, " and have prepared a specimen for your use, not worked in worsted, but painted on card; and I have, moreover, given to it the convenient form of a handscreen, which I now place at your disposal."

"Many thanks, my dear Miss Villers."

Mr Seymour, in the evening of the day, drew his family party around him, and by the aid of a candle was enabled to exhibit the extraordinary appearance above related.

"Now," said he, " in order to arrive at some satisfactory explanation of this appearance, let us slowly and carefully observe what takes place. If we fix the eye upon some salient point of the figure, we shall soon become convinced that it does not actually change its place, with reference to the coloured ground upon which it is depicted; and if next, we notice what change takes place on the surface of the figure, as the tablet is moved to and fro, we shall detect a 'penumbra,' that is, an imperfectly-defined shadow, flitting across it. Now if this fact be admitted, two distinct questions will arise out of it, first, how is the shadow produced? and secondly, upon what principle is the idea of motion thus conveyed by it?-In answer to the first of these questions, I must express my belief that it is a lingering impression upon the retina, produced by that of the coloured ground, or that the colour of the figure, and that of the ground, unequally retain their hold upon the eye, as to duration of time, and consequently that one impression, if I may so express it, overlaps the other."

"After your explanation of the retention of an image for several seconds by the eye, I think I can comprehend your meaning," said Miss Villers.

“Well, if that be granted, I shall at once be able to convince you, by ocular demonstration, that the transit of a shadow over an illumi'nated surface will have a tendency to produce apparent motion." So saying, Mr Seymour proceeded, with lamp in hand, to the marble bust of Newton, that was mounted on a pedestal in a corner of his library, and on slowly moving the light in different directions before it, the whole party acknowledged that the countenance certainly became apparently animated by varied and changing expressions. The party now dispersed, not less gratified than they had been instructed by the lesson they had received.

The mighty magician of the North has compared the course of a

narrative to the progress of a stone rolled down hill by an idle truant boy, "which at first moveth slowly, avoiding by inflection very obstacle of the least importance; but when it has attained its full impulse, and draws near the conclusion of its career, it smokes and thunders down, making a rood at every spring, clearing hedge and ditch, like a Yorkshire huntsman, and becoming most furiously rapid in its course when it is nearest to being consigned to rest for ever. Even such," says he, "is the course of a narrative; the earlier events are studiously dwelt upon; but when the story draws near its close, we hurry over the circumstances, however important, which your imagination must have forestalled, and leave you to suppose those things which it would be abusing your patience to relate at length."

Let the reader of the present work accept this explanation as an apology for the abrupt and rapid manner in which we shall now accelerate our narrative. Since the last lecture, our history has advanced nearly three weeks, during which interval the major had made every arrangement for the approaching marriage. It was finally agreed that the ceremony should be performed at Overton church; and as the "happy couple" expressed a wish to pass their "honeymoon" in a retired part of Yorkshire, the major consented to postpone his fête until after their return; nor was he displeased at such an arrangement, as it afforded time for getting up his entertainment on a more liberal scale than could otherwise have been accomplished, and for inviting his numerous friends to attend it. We shall now avail ourselves of that peculiar Lethean property which has been often ascribed to the pen of the author, and commit the reader to the arms of Morpheus, where it is our intention that he shall remain until the morning of the nuptials.

Reader, awake! the sun has risen, and Nature is robing herself in her most gorgeous apparel for the approaching ceremony; the family of the Lodge have been already roused from their slumbers by the attendance of minstrels, whom the vicar had directed to salute the bridal party at break of day. But hark! while we are thus trifling, the village of Overton is in a bustle; the marriage ceremony is over; the bells of the church are ringing right merrily their festive peals; many a handkerchief is waving from the cottage windows, while the doors are decorated with garlands; the vicarage is ornamented with fragments of Venetian tapestry; the peasants, dressed in their holiday garments, are carrying nosegays in their hands, to present to the bride as an offering of their respect, or to strew in her path, as an emblematic expression of their wishes.

The party having reached Osterley Park, we were proceeding to describe the banquet which had been prepared, and the various de

vices and emblems with which it had been decorated, under the classical direction of the vicar, when, alas! our publishers, like the harpies of old, unexpectedly pounced upon us, and warned us from the feast" diripiuntque dapes," as Virgil has it.

"You have already exceeded the prescribed limits—you must close the scene: remember that you have engaged to condense the work into one volume," said they. We remonstrate, but in vain. We request but a few pages, in order that we may give our characters a dramatic exit; but they reply to us in the words of Sneer in the Critic, "Oh, never mind! so as you get them off the stage, I'll answer for it the reader won't care how."

You see then, gentle reader, how vain it would be to struggle against such arbitrary and tasteless masters; we shall, therefore, without any further apology, ring the manager's bell, and drop the curtain.

CHAPTER XXIV.

A MONTH had nearly elapsed since the bridal pair had quitted Overton; and during this period the greatest activity had been displayed by the itinerant corps of Momus, under the superintendence of their manager, Ned Hopkins, our "philosopher of the Porch." The various show-booths had been erected by their respective owners with an expedition that might have put many a prouder architect to shame the marquees and the temporary rooms had been completed under the management of Tom Plank; and for those whose appetite might hold precedence of the senses of sight and hearing, ample funds of gratification had been provided by the accomplished hostess of the "Bag of Nails," whose grim troop of kettles and stewpans, had, during the whole of the week, been chirping and chuckling over the kitchen range until, for lack of rest, its very cheeks had cracked from yawning.

The numerous friends who had responded to the joint invitations of the major and Mr Seymour were fast arriving. Amidst an assemblage of fashionables from Belgravia, and the élite of the county, were to be seen a motley display of discordant spirits. Foremost in the field were the military friends of the major, who, in these piping times of peace, despairing of a glorious martyrdom from shells and cannon, were e'en content to lay siege to the major's well-stored pantry to be blown up with ragoûts and turtle, fired by Burgundy, and bombarded by Champagne corks, under the command of their old and gallant comrade. Then came members of Parliament, broken down by the weighty cares of legislation; poets reduced to a “caput mortuum," by a species of spontaneous combustion; novelists driven wild by the creations of a distempered fancy; Cambridge wranglers so attenuated by mathematical abstractions as to have become as angular as their diagrams of demonstration; etymologists whose small and mole-set eyes gave token of their obscure and toilsome calling; explorers from the banks of "Old Euphrates," who in the silent courts of winged demons and grim idols had cunningly extorted from their "arrow-headed" tongues secrets of historic truth, which, for some thousand years had lain entombed in petrifaction; then succeeded, as if in pleasing and striking contrast, a rubicund party of geological tourists, radiant with the healthful glow of the mountain

breeze, with hammers in hand, as if prepared to knock the world about the ears of those who disputed their sovereignty over the mighty race of Antediluvian Monsters; and, last, though very far from the least attractive part of this assemblage, came pale-faced, but limber-tongued lawyers, who, having thrown off their cares with their wigs, and plunged their briefs in the Lethe of a long vacation, had joyfully accepted the hospitality of Osterley Park, as an agreeable and seasonable recreation: but as taciturnity and quiescence do not constitute the characteristic elements of a lawyer's holiday, let not the reader conclude that they abandoned their controversial tendencies; but, on the contrary, let him admire that harmonious adjustment by which the moral world is regulated; let him acknowledge the wisdom by which tranquillity is shed over such wild spirits, and a vent or safety-valve provided for the escape of that high-pressure of pugnacity, which, no longer expended in actuating the wheels of the law, might have occasioned the most direful explosions, had it not, like the electricity of the thunder-cloud, found, if not a silent, at least a harmless conductor. It is to be deeply regretted that a reporter had not been engaged to chronicle the sayings and doings of these intellectual gladiators.

The major now anxiously awaited the arrival of every post, in expectation of a letter that might announce the day upon which Henry Beacham and his bride would return to Osterley Park. At length the long-anticipated intelligence was received, that they might be expected at Overton by four o'clock on the day after the morrow. The vicar was immediately summoned to a council, and, on his arrival, retired with the major for the purpose of consulting the chronicles of Holinshed and Froissart, touching certain points of ceremonial that might guide them in their arrangements for receiving the bride. The vicar pleaded in favour of the forms that were observed on the occasion of the public entrance of Queen Isabella into the city of Paris; but the major objected to the plan, on account of the pageant representing the siege of Troy-a point upon which the vicar, as may be readily imagined, most pertinaciously insisted; so that the gentlemen separated without having arrived at any satisfactory conclusion upon the subject, and the question was transferred to another jurisdiction. No sooner had it become known that Mr and Mrs Beacham were shortly to arrive, than the more respectable yeomen of the parish assembled at the village inn, to concert a plan for receiving them with all due honour, when it was finally arranged that the village should be decorated with garlands, and the maypole erected on the spot where its gaudy streamers had for so many ages annually floated on the breeze of spring. It was further resolved, that every person who could furnish himself with a horse should attend at a certain spot by the hour of three, in order to advance in procession, and escort the