"Let us now," said Dr. Blanke, "leave the venerable sufferer to his repose, during which Nature may be free to perform the work of his restoration." He then addressed himself to inspire the hopes and allay the apprehensions of the company for the welfare of him in whom two of them, at least, were so deeply interested. He next retired to change his dress, leaving them without any injunctions to await his return in silence. On the contrary, he told them that they might bawl in the sleeper's ear, or burn his nose, or prick his fingers if they thought proper, without any fear of awakening him. Filial piety, and neighbourly respect, however, prevented them from trying these experiments. In anxious astonishment, conversing only in ejaculations, they awaited his return, which took place very soon. He reappeared in his usual professional costume. "I will now," said the Doctor, "proceed to awaken our patient. Should he prove recovered, as I trust he may, let me request you, young lady to moderate your transports: or he will be in danger of a relapse." He then made a few transverse passes in front of the face of the patient, who altered his position, and began to move a little in his chair. 66 Sensation," said the Doctor, " is now partially restored. The brain is in a state of semi-consciousness. Perhaps the soothing influence of music, for which I have provided, will complete the restoration of its powers. He then went to the window, and throwing it open, concisely exclaimed, "Strike up." A barrel-organ below instantly commenced Balfe's touching melody of "Marble Halls." Returning to the somnambulist, Dr. Blanke touched his organ of tune; whereupon he instantly began to beat time to the air; and continued doing so for some ten minutes. " "Now," said the Doctor, "I think this will do." So saying, he inclined his head, and blew a sudden puff of air on the patient's eye-brows, which the latter began to rub. He then gradually opened his eyes, and at length with a start awoke. The first word he uttered was "Hallo!" "My dear, dear Papa!" cried Sarah-but De Vigne prudently restrained her from rushing into his arms. "Hey? What?" cried the old gentleman. "Why surely I've been napping. Doctor, I beg your pardon. What noise is that?" Here he alluded to the organ, which continued playing. "Who left the gate open? Tell that fellow to go away instantly.' "Do you know what you have been dreaming about, sir," said Dr. Blanke. "Dreaming-eh? Have I?" Yes, sir. You have been talking in your sleep about the KING OF CLUBS." It was a moment of breathless interest! "The King of Clubs, eh? Ha, ha! I don't recollect it." Hour of joy and transport! Yes. The sire of Sarah had returned to reason. He retained not a trace of recollection of his malady. We leave to be imagined the feelings of William and his Sarah, which were only equalled by those which filled their bosoms when, a few days afterwards, their hands were joined by the Reverend Dr. Oldport. We can compare their emotions to nothing else,-except, perhaps, the delight and satisfaction with which Dr. Blanke, in reward for his services, received from De Vigne, on the morning of his marriage, a check for one hundred pounds. "So much," said the learned and facetious practitioner, "for trumping the KING OF CLUBS." MEMOIR OF ALBERT SMITH. WITH A PORTRAIT. As one of the most popular and prolific contributors to the light literature of the day, and one whose name has now so long figured at the portal of our Miscellany as a promise of good entertainment within, a sketch of Mr. Albert Smith's biography (in company with the sketch of his physiognomy) may not be an unacceptable present to our readers, at the same time that it is a tribute to his merit, which he has well and fairly earned. The life of a successful literary man in the present day will generally afford very little interest of a romantic nature-no "hair breadth 'scapes nor moving accidents by flood and field "—and fortunately for us who have not the novelist's talent to set forth such things, this is the case with Mr. Albert Smith, with one exception, his adventure with the brigands in Italy, and to that he has himself done full justice, in the narrative with which he commenced his Miscellaneous career. The first fact of importance in Mr. Smith's life was his birth, which took place in the town of Chertsey, where his father still resides in the capacity of surgeon, enjoying an extensive practice and the esteem of all who know him. There the embryo littérateur was fostered under the paternal roof until deemed of sufficient years to be consigned to one of the public schools in London. Merchant Tailors' was the shooting gallery selected for his young idea; but how far the young gentleman himself concurred in the choice, we have an opportunity of judging by his reminiscences of that establishment as recorded in the history of "The Scattergood Family." The writer of this me moir was here first acquainted with its subject; although he is bound to say that, at that time, Mr. Albert Smith gave no indications of literary aptitude, unless the skill he displayed in "painting characters" (for a pasteboard theatre) be looked upon as a pre-shadowing of his future achievements as a novelist. On leaving Merchant Tailors', it was proposed that Mr. Smith should be brought up in the profession of his father, and he accordingly became a student in Middlesex Hospital, and subsequently at the Hôtel Dieu in Paris, where he acquired that intimate knowledge of all the phases of student-life in London and Paris, which he afterwards set forth with such keen minuteness of observation and comic power. Let it not be thought, however, that his acquirements were limited to a knowledge of this questionable art merely, as he was soon after admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and returned to Chertsey as assistant to his father, and the destined successor to his practice. His literary aspirations, however, were already urging their ascendancy in opposition to the obscure path thus traced out for his exertions, and at last found an outlet in The Literary World-a little periodical started about this time by Mr. Timbs, the editor of The Mirror. To this he contributed a number of short tales and sketches, for which a more extended popularity was afterwards gained by their publication in a collected form under the title of "The Wassail Bowl." This was conclusive; our young author had tasted blood-he had seen himself in print-and his career was from that time irrevocably fixed. He shortly after established himself in London, and Punch having then just started, he was solicited to become a contributor. His several papers of "The Medical Student," "Evening Parties," "The London Lounger," "The Side-scenes of Society," contributed in no small degree to the success and popularity of that periodical; and established for their author at once a high reputation as a comic writer and an amusing and good-natured satirist of London Society, its external ostentations and its inward economy.* His reputation for this style of writing was carried out still further in his alliance with Mr. John Parry, whom he has supplied with a rich budget of materials adapted with admirable tact to the display of those executive drolleries for which Mr. Parry might fairly claim a patent of invention but that he may discard all fear of imitation. A few random contributions to " Bentley's Miscellany" then led to a firmer connection; and the novel of "The Adventures of Mr. Ledbury" was commenced in 1842; with what success is known to the readers of the "Miscellany." This first essay in a work of longue haleine, as they also know, was immediately followed by the " Fortunes of the Scattergood Family," and the "Marchioness de Brinvilliers;" in which latter work Mr. Smith has made a bold plunge into antiquarian and historical romance, and shown the power to deeply interest and instruct, of which few would have suspected the comic writer. It is not necessary that we should give a complete catalogue of Mr. Smith's literary labours; his indefatigable industry and versatility would render this no easy task, and we have merely traced the landmarks through which he has so rapidly travelled to the position he now holds. Were we to enumerate the result of even one year's labour in his multifarious contributions to periodical literature of every description, we should more than astonish the reader. One principal feature, however, we have omitted,—his connections with the theatre, which commenced humbly, but most successfully, at the Surrey Theatre, in the drama of " Blanche Heriot," and has subsequently been carried on with no less success, and more acceptable laurels in the path of burlesque writing. "Aladdin," "Valentine and Orson" "Whittington," "Cinderella," we have all seen succeed each other in rapid and in brilliant array, and establish for Mr. Smith a reputation for Burlesque only inferior to its inventor Mr. Planché. Having brought our hero up to his last achievement, we now leave him with the hope that what he may have recorded is but the glimmering dawn of a long and bright day. One word more, and this at the risk of saddling Mr. Bentley with advertisement duty, we particularly address to eligible spinsters, Mr. Smith is unmarried, and twenty-nine years of age. C. L. K. * Mr. Smith's connection with Punch has since ceased, through a misunderstanding, the causes of which are among the mysteries of London. EARLY YEARS OF A VETERAN OF THE ARMY OF WESTPHALIA, BETWEEN 1805 AND 1814. It is to be supposed that the hamlet was empty of its former inhabitants. On the approach of enemies they concealed themselves and their small property in the forests; and thus even the first fugitives had found no food of any kind. After having in some degree warmed ourselves, we began covertly to do honour to our eatables. As they could not, even by the most thrifty divisions of them, hold out very long, what was to become of us during the remaining distance to Wilna? and how did these masses of human beings around us sustain themselves? I know not. The last resources had been left on the other side of the Beresina, where, when all else failed, there were yet horses to slaughter and to feed upon. Here was nothing-absolutely nothing; and as we on the succeeding day saw countless, heaped-up corpses on our road, we knew to a certainty by their appearance with what enemy they had been combating; their hollow, fallen-in faces proved that famine, gaunt famine, had allied itself with their innumerable privations and exhausting efforts to destroy them. In mounds, in walls, heaped up together, lay the victims of the last night as we left our bivouac in the morning. Early on the second day we hastened on, but with strength much diminished, for the remainder of the ham had furnished only slender rations for our breakfast. The storm blew with redoubled violence; the cold was intense, and the despair around us was not calculated to sustain our courage. The dead and the living increased in number as we passed along; many of the latter, in quiet, melancholy delirium, were seated upon a stone or a hillock of earth; and, as we at evening sank down by our fire, weak, weary, and worn out, more than one of us, too, had lost all hope. Next morning, when I had left my companions at a short distance, I espied a man carrying a large, coarse bag, and ran after him as fast as I was able. To my inquiry of what the bag contained the man answered there was flour in it, and made over to me the half of it for an extravagant sum of money. I ran back in triumph to my fainting companions. The prospect of so reviving a breakfast screwed up our courage. Quickly was our camp-kettle filled with snow, therein to cook our soup. We seasoned it with a cartridge, and half-famished as we were, we fell to as soon as it was ready; but, what horror was ours upon discovering a number of those disgusting worms so often to be found in old flour. General Schulz was able, indeed, to joke over our soup, and baptised it soul-cement, recommending it as the only means of keeping body and soul in harmony together; but though none of us refused his share, neither could any one get down the disgusting mixture without a monstrous effort over himself. Our horses still held out, and we fed them upon a little straw-thatch, or we found here and there a haycock in a meadow, out of which we provided ourselves. While relating our grievous necessities some persons may perhaps make the observation that we might have had one of these animals killed for our subsistence; but, in the first place, we could not then have taken on our wounded,-besides from station to station we were getting nearer to Wilna, where, as it was said, we were to form and be assembled; therefore, in order to be soon fit for service, we must preserve to the uttermost the means requisite for that purpose. The scene next day at our bivouac had again changed, and for the worse; sufferings, want, and fatigue had increased to a hideous degree. Thousands of those newly arrived, staggering round the fire, endeavoured with impotent hands to reach it, and soon, acknowledging the fruitlessness of their efforts, sank down upon the icy field to sleep the sleep of death. At intervals curses and adjurations resounded, mingled with loud lamentations for dear kinsfolk, and in particular young soldiers were often heard to grieve with expressions of the deepest sorrow after their beloved mothers at home. Some who found no more dry wood for their fire tried, but generally in vain, to break off the green twigs from the trees; their powerless hands slipped off the smooth rind; they sank down, and he who once fell rose up no more, unless lifted up by a friend's hand. An old man with snow-white hair, bent, feeble, wrapped in a large cloak, approached the fire of the soldiers, and said to them, with supplicating gestures, "Room at the fire, for the love of God!" !" "Get you gone "There are no more generals," was the answer; we are all generals." Terrible as were the curses and imprecations from all sides, nothing made so deep an impression upon us as the misery of those who had lost their reason through destitution, and the now hourly-increasing cold. Some threw themselves upon the crackling fire; others cursed God and man, whilst they madly struck their heads against the stems of trees; others, again, were singing, with a melancholy, frenzied smile in their pale, hollow-eyed, deathly faces, the songs of their native country. Others sat by the wayside, and wept with all the painful intensity that children weep in, and with the convulsive passionate sobbing of that period of life. On the fourth day, as we were hardly able for hunger to drag ourselves along, we obtained upon the march (I no longer remember through what happy accident) a great piece of raw meat, which we tried to cook at our fire; but, meantime, our hunger was so imperative that we thawed a portion of it, cut off small bits, and strewing a little gunpowder upon them, swallowed them down raw. On the night of the 28th of November we crossed the Beresina, and on the 5th of December reached an inhabited tract of country in the district of Malodecznow. Although there were no provisions, yet in houses and sheds, or in the rear of them, we found sleeping-places secure from the harsh-blowing wind. The houses were often so full that the ground-floor, and every corner, were crammed with fugitives. However, we had the good luck once to be among the first arrivals in one of the huts, where we soon made ourselves comfortable, and lay down to sleep. I awoke about two o'clock; and having roused Lieutenant Brand and my servant, I prepared to start. All my comrades were ready except Lieutenant Schrader and Lieutenant Köhler, who found themselves too comfortable in their warm birth, now a novelty, to be induced to stir. At our departure the whole hamlet, according to custom, was in flames; and when we had gone on a hundred paces we discovered that our last night's quarters, caught by the fire, was also blazing; and after a hundred paces or so Lieutenant Schrader overtook |