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bone of contention. Besides the
divisions between North and South,
the North being generally Abolition-
ist, and the South compelled to be,
for self-preservation, opposed to Abo-
lition, each great party, the Whig
and the Democrat, is divided between
Abolitionist and Compromise parties.
A majority of the Whigs in the North,
and a small minority in the South,
are, I believe, Abolitionists. The
entire Democrats of the South, and a
great proportion of the Democrats in
the North, are in favour of the Com-
promise measure. Many who abhor
slavery, and would sacrifice much to
see it abolished, both of the Whig
and Democrat party, strongly sup-
port the Compromise, as the only
practical measure which could be
devised to satisfy the Southern States
in regard to their independent rights,
and to guard against a complete dis-
ruption of the Union. The proba-
bility of such a disruption has, I be-
lieve, been very much over-estimated;
for the safety of the States, their
power, their progress, and their glory,
depends entirely upon their union;
and Jonathan is not a man to under-
estimate its advantages. Besides,
this is a land of bluster; and much
sound is continually followed by very
small results. Nevertheless, very
menacing symptoms were lately dis-
played in the South; and no calcula-
tion can reach the consequences of
the secession, or even attempted
secession, of one single State from the
Union. To sum up, the result is, the
population is divided really into
Unionists, or Compromise-men, and
Disunionists, or Abolitionists. Each
body is split into a thousand different
factions; and although the preponder-
ance is really with the Democrats, as feeding C
upon the operation of these factions

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as far as I have seen, it works very ill; nothing could work worse, wherever popular prejudices, popular passion, or popular folly was concerned. Who may be the new President, selected from this bag of accidents, I cannot take upon myself to say; but the tendency of the States is democratic; and unless some great mistake is made by that party, they will elect him. Fillmore, Webster, Scott, and Cass, are the most prominent candidates; but the most prominent are not always the most successful; and it would not at all surprise me to find some man almost unheard of in the contest, stepping quietly into the Presidential chair. The more a man has done for the country, the less likely is the country to choose him. It is not for what a man has done, but for what he has not done, that he is elected; for each eminent political man makes more enemies than friends. He offends a hundred where he gratifies one.

Whoever may be the President, however, the United States will hold on the even tenor of their way-increasing every day and every hour in material prosperity-augmenting

in population and resources. They will not interfere in the affairs of Europe, notwithstanding all Kossuth can say; they will not again attempt to surprise Cuba, under cover of a Creole revolution, till a more favourable opportunity. They will coquet with the Sandwich Islands; push their feelers into the open oyster-shell of Mexico, and as far as the narrowest part of the Isthmus, feeling a destiny which impels them thither. They will flatter and court the Canadians, who hate them; construct railroads and canals as highways for enterprises of all kinds; settle, populate, cultivate, develop wild districts and undiscovered resources; display many of the best, and many of the worst, features of the Anglo-Saxon character, with here and there a touch of all the different nations which they are absorbing into themselves; and in the end, I believe, before magnitude causes disjunction, or corruption produces decay, will become, what they believe themselves to be now, one of the greatest people that the earth has ever seen.-Your obedient servant,

AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD.

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MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.

BY PISISTRATUS CAXTON.

BOOK XI. CONTINUED CHAPTER XIII.

WE have seen Squire Hazeldean, (proud of the contents of his pocketbook, and his knowledge of the mercenary nature of foreign women,) set off on his visit to Beatrice di Negra. Randal, thus left, musing lone in the crowded streets, revolved with astute complacency the probable results of Mr Hazeldean's bluff negotiation; and, convincing himself that one of his vistas towards Fortune was becoming more clear and clear, he turned, with the restless activity of some founder of destined cities in a new settlement, to lop the boughs that cumbered and obscured the others. For truly, like a man in a vast Columbian forest, opening entangled space, now with the ready axe, now with the patient train, that kindles the slower fire, this child of civilised life went toiling on against surrounding obstacles, resolute to destroy, but ever scheming to construct. And now Randal has reached Levy's dainty business-room, and is buried deep in discussion how to secure to himself, at the expense of his patron, the representation of Lansmere, and how to complete the contract which shall reannex to his forlorn inheritance some fragments of its ancient wealth.

Meanwhile, Chance fought on his side in the boudoir of May Fair. The Squire had found the Marchesa at home-briefly introduced himself and his business-told her she was mistaken if she had fancied she had taken in a rich heir in his son-that, thank Heaven, he could leave his estates to his ploughman, if he so pleased, but that he was willing to do things liberally; and whatever she thought Frank was worth, he was very ready to pay for.

At another time Beatrice would perhaps have laughed at this strange address; or she might, in some prouder moment, have fired up with all a patrician's resentment and a woman's pride; but now her spirit

VOL. LXXII.-NO. CCCCXLI.

was crushed, her nerves shattered: the sense of her degraded position, of her dependence on her brother, combined with her supreme unhappiness at the loss of those dreams with which Leonard had for a while charmed her wearied waking life-all came upon her. She listened, pale and speechless; and the poor Squire thought he was quietly advancing towards a favourable result, when she suddenly burst into a passion of hysterical tears; and just at that moment Frank himself entered the room. At the sight of his father, of Beatrice's grief, his sense of filial duty gave way. He was maddened by irritation-by the insult offered to the woman he loved, which a few trembling words from her explained to him; maddened yet more by the fear that the insult had lost her to him-warm words ensued between son and father, to close with the peremptory command and vehement threat of the last.

"Come away this instant, sir! Come with me, or before the day is over I strike you out of my will!"

The son's answer was not to his father; he threw himself at Beatrice's feet.

"Forgive him-forgive us both-"

"What! you prefer that stranger to me to the inheritance of Hazeldean!" cried the Squire, stamping his foot.

"Leave your estates to whom you will; all that I care for in life is here!"

The Squire stood still a moment or so, gazing on his son, with a strange bewildered marvel at the strength of that mystic passion, which none not labouring under its fearful charm can comprehend, which creates the sudden idol that no reason justifies, and sacrifices to its fatal shrine alike the Past and the Future. Not trusting himself to speak, the father drew his hand across his eyes, and dashed away the bitter tear that

D

hair.

sprang from a swelling indignant the light pressure of that golden heart; then he uttered an inarticulate sound, and, finding his voice gone, moved away to the door, and left the house.

He walked through the streets, bearing his head very erect, as a proud man does when deeply wounded, and striving to shake off some affection that he deems a weakness; and his trembling nervous fingers fumbled at the button of his coat, trying to tighten the garment across his chest, as if to confirm a resolution that still sought to struggle out of the revolting heart.

Thus he went on, and the reader, perhaps, will wonder whither; and the wonder may not lessen when he finds the Squire come to a dead pause in Grosvenor Square, and at the portico of his "distant brother's" stately house.

At the Squire's brief inquiry whether Mr Egerton was at home, the porter summoned the groom of the chambers; and the groom of the chambers, seeing a stranger, doubted whether his master was not engaged, but would take in the stranger's card and see.

"Ay, ay," muttered the Squire, "this is true relationship-my child prefers a stranger to me. Why should I complain that I am a stranger in a brother's house? Sir," added the Squire aloud, and very meekly-" Sir, please to say to your master that I am William Hazeldean."

The servant bowed low, and without another word conducted the visitor into the statesman's library, and, announcing Mr Hazeldean, closed the door.

Audley was seated at his desk, the grim iron boxes still at his feet, but they were now closed and locked. And the minister was no longer looking official documents; letters open before him, of far difnature; in his hand there lay ong lock of fair silken hair, on Ich his eyes were fixed sadly and tently. He started at the sound of la visitor's name, and the tread of he Squire's stalwart footstep; and tacchanically thrust into his bosom relic of younger and warmer rs, keeping his hand to his heart, ich beat loud with disease, under

The two brothers stood on the great man's lonely hearth, facing each other in silence, and noting unconsciously the change made in each during the long years in which they had never met.

The Squire, with his portly size, his hardy sun-burnt cheeks, the partial baldness of his unfurrowed open forehead, looked his full age-deep into middle life. Unmistakably he seemed the pater familias-the husband and the father-the man of social domestic ties. But about Audley, (really some few years junior to the Squire,) despite the lines of care on his handsome face, there still lingered the grace of youth. Men of cities retain youth longer than those of the country-a remark which Buffon has not failed to make and to account for. Neither did Egerton betray the air of the married man; for ineffable solitariness seemed stamped upon the man, whose private life had long been so stern a solitude. No ray from the focus of Home played round that reserved, unjoyous, melancholy brow. In a word, Audley looked still the man for whom some young female heart might fondly sigh; and not the less because of the cold eye and compressed lip, which challenged interest even while seeming to repel it.

Audley was the first to speak, and to put forth the right hand, which he stole slowly from its place at his breast, on which the lock of hair still stirred to and fro at the heave of the labouring heart. "William," said he, with his rich deep voice, "this is kind. You are come to see me, now that men say I am fallen. The minister you censured is no more; and you see again the brother."

The Squire was softened at once by this address. He shook heartily the hand tendered to him; and then, turning away his head, with an honest conviction that Audley ascribed to him a credit which he did not deserve, he said, " No, no, Audley; I am more selfish than you think me. I have come-I have come to ask your advice-no, not exactly that-your opinion. But you are busy?"

"Sit down, William. Old days were coming over me when you

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entered; days earlier still return now-days, too, that leave no shadow when their suns are set."

The proud man seemed to think he had said too much. His practical nature rebuked the poetic sentiment and phrase. He re-collected himself, and added, more coldly, "You would ask my opinion? What on? Some public matter-some Parliamentary bill that may affect your property?"

"Am I such a mean miser as that? Property - property? What does property matter, when a man is struck down at his own hearth? Property, indeed! But you have no child happy brother!"

"Ay, ay; as you say, I am a happy man; childless! Has your son displeased you? I have heard him spoken of well, too."

"Don't talk of him. Whether his conduct be good or ill is my affair," resumed the poor father with a testy voice-jealous alike of Audley's praise or blame of his rebellious son. Then he rose a moment, and made a strong gulp, as if for air; and laying his broad brown hand on his brother's shoulder, said "Randal Leslie tells me you are wise-a consummate man of the world. No doubt you are so. And Parson Dale tells me that he is sure you have warm feelings-which I take to be a strange thing for one who has lived so long in London, and has no wife and no child-a widower, and a Member of Parliament-for a commercial city, too. Never smile; it is no smiling matter with me. You know a foreign woman, called Negra or Negro-not a blackymoor, though, by any means-at least on the outside of her. Is she such a woman as a plain country gentleman would like his only son to marry-ay or no?"

66

"No, indeed," answered Audley, gravely; " and I trust your son will commit no action so rash. Shall I see him, or her? Speak, my dear William. What would you have me do?"

"Nothing; you have said enough," replied the Squire gloomily; and his head sank on his breast.

Audley took his hand, and pressed it fraternally. "William," said the statesman, "we have been long estranged; but I do not forget that when we last met, at-at Lord Lans

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mere's house, and when I took you aside, and said William, if I lose this election, I must resign all chance of public life; my affairs are embarassed; I may need-I would not accept money from you-I would seek a profession, and you can help me there,' you divined my meaning, and said-Take orders; the Hazeldean living is just vacant. I will get some one to hold it till you are ordained.' I do not forget that. Would that I had thought earlier of so serene an escape from all that then tormented me. My lot might have been far happier."

The Squire eyed Audley with a surprise that broke forth from his more absorbing emotions. "Happier! Why, all things have prospered with you; and you are rich enough now; and-you shake your head. Brother, is it possible! do you want money? Pooh, not accept money from your mother's son!stuff." Out came the Squire's pocket-book. Audley put it gently aside.

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Nay," said he, "I have enough for myself; but since you seek and speak with me thus affectionately, I will ask you one favour. Should I die before I can provide for my wife's kinsman, Randal Leslie, as I could wish, will you see to his fortunes, so far as you can, without injury to others-to your own son?"

"My son! He is provided for. He has the Casino estate-much good may it do him. You have touched on the very matter that brought me here. This boy, Randal Leslie, seems a praiseworthy lad, and has Hazeldean blood in his veins. You have taken him up because he is connected with your late wife. Why should not I take him up, too, when his grandmother was a Hazeldean? I wanted to ask you what you meant to do for him; for if you did not mean to provide for him, why, I will, as in duty bound. So your request comes at the right time; I think of altering my will. I can put him into the entail, besides a handsome legacy. You are sure he is a good lad—and it will please you too, Audley!"

"But not at the expense of your son. And stay, William-as to this

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