PREFACE.

Not many years ago, as the writer of this work was returning on horseback to Castellamare, from a visit to the Lactarian Hills, he overtook, just under the chestnut trees on the slope, which every one who has visited that part of Italy must remember, two gentlemen with their guide, who were on their way home after some expedition of a kind similar to his own.

As the indefinable something told him at once that they were Englishmen, he turned, as usual under such circumstances, to examine them more critically in passing, and in one of them recollected a person whom he had met more than once in London. He hesitated whether he should claim the acquaintance; as, when he had before seen him, the traveller had appeared to great disadvantage. A man of rank and fortune, flattered, caressed, single, and set at, he had borne a sort of sneering indifference on his countenance, which certainly did not recommend him to a person who neither sought his friendship nor feared his contempt. A few traits, indeed, had casually appeared, which seemed to betray a better spirit beneath this kind of supercilious exterior; but still the impression was unfavourable.

All hesitation, however, was put an end to by a bow and friendly recognition on the part of the other; and either because the annoyances of the society in which he had formerly been met, were now removed, or because a general improvement had worked itself in his demeanour and character, his tone was so different, and his aspect so prepossessing, that all feelings of dislike were soon done away. He instantly made his "dear, new-found friend" acquainted with his companion; and informing him that he had left his wife and sister at the Albergo Reale, invited him to join their party for the evening.

This was accordingly done, and now—having ridden the third person long enough, as it is the roughest going horse in the stable—I will, with the reader's permission, do the next ten miles on the first person singular.

The acquaintance which was there renewed soon went on to intimacy; and as I found that the party which I had met with, consisted of an odd number, the unfortunate fifth being an old gentleman, who required some one more of his own age than his four relations to converse with, I ventured to propose myself as their companion in a visit to some places in the neighbourhood, and as their cicerone to Pæstum. The proposal was accepted; and, strange enough to say, our companionship, which had commenced so suddenly, did not end till those I may now boldly call my friends returned to England, nearly a year after, leaving me to stupify at Lauzanne.

Amongst the many pleasures which I derived from their society in Italy, none was greater than that which some account of their preceding adventures gave me. This was first obtained in a casual manner, by hearing continual reference made amongst themselves to particular circumstances. "Do you remember, Henry, such and such an event? Does not that put you in mind of this, that, or the other?" was continually ringing in my ears; and thus I gathered part ere the whole was continuously related to me. At length, I obtained a complete narrative; and though it was told with many a gay and happy jest, and many a reference to details which would not amuse the world in general, I could not help thinking that the public might find it nearly as interesting as it proved to me.

In the same sort of gossiping anecdotical style in which I received it, I have here, with full permission, put down the whole story. In what tongue under the sun I have written it, I do not very well know, though the language I intended to employ is a sort of jargon, based upon Anglo-Saxon, with a superstructure of the Norman corruption of French, propped up by bad Latin, and having the vacancies supplied by Greek. Taking it for granted, that into this refuge for destitute tongues, any houseless stranger would be welcome, whenever I was not able to find readily a word or expression to my purpose, I have either made one for myself, or stolen one from the first language at hand; and as this has been done in all ages, I make no apology for it here.

I have reason, however, to believe that I have more sins to answer for amongst the technical terms, and other more important matters. My worthy lawyer, Mr. W—, tells me that my law is not sound; that, instead of indicted I should have said arraigned; instead of action I should have used the word process—or the reverse, I forget which. My gallant friend, Captain D—, has taken much pains to explain to me the difference between a yawl and a Peter boat, and has utterly confounded me with a definition of clinker built; and my noble friend. Lord A—, declares that I have certainly painted both his foibles and his adventures in somewhat strong colours; but if, by so doing, I make a better book of it—why, let it pass.

For all this I apologize to the public in general, acknowledging that I am neither lawyer nor physician, soldier nor sailor, scholar nor philosopher, nor what the cant of a former day denominated a man of wit about town. Whoever reads the book, will see all this at a glance; but I trust they will also see that I have not drawn from things of marble, but from flesh and blood.

To one portion of his Britannic Majesty's subjects I have particularly to apologize. Since this book went to the press, I have discovered, from Cary's Road-Book, that there is a real village, or hamlet, or town, called Emberton; and I hereby most solemnly declare, that, in fixing upon that name as the scene of my chief adventures, I believed I was employing an entirely fictitious title, and did so for the sole purpose of concealing the real place at which some of the events occurred. Let it be remembered, therefore, by all persons who have seen, heard, or known any thing of the village, town, or hamlet of Emberton, that, in writing this book, I did not know that such a place did truly exist, and that nothing herein contained, is in any way to be understood or construed to apply to the real place called Emberton or its inhabitants, referring solely to a different spot in a different county, which shall, by the reader's good leave, be nameless.

Innerleithen, 25th May, 1833.

DELAWARE;

OR,

THE RUINED FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

Most cities are hateful; and, without any disposition to "babble about green fields," it must be owned that each is more or less detestable. Nevertheless, amongst them all, there is none to be compared as a whole to London;—none which comprehends within itself, from various causes, so much of the sublime in every sort. Whether we consider its giant immensity of expanse—the wonderful intricacy of its internal structure—the miraculous harmony of its discrepant parts—the grand amalgamation of its different orders, classes, states, pursuits, professions—the mighty aggregate of hopes, wishes, endeavours, joys, successes, fears, pangs, disappointments, crimes, and punishments, that it contains—its relative influence on the world at large—or the vehement pulse with which that "mighty heart" sends the flood of circulation through this beautiful land—we shall find that that most wonderful microcosm well deserves the epithet sublime.

To view it rightly—if we wish to view it with the eye of a philosopher—we should choose perhaps the hour which is chosen by the most magnificent and extraordinary of modern poets, and gaze upon it when the sun is just beginning to pour his first red beams through the dim and loaded air, when that vast desert of brick and mortar, that interminable wilderness of spires and chimneys, looks more wide, and endless, and solemn, than when the eye is distracted by the myriads of mites that creep about it in the risen day.

It may be asked, perhaps, who is there that ever saw it at that hour, except the red-armed housemaid, washing the morning step, and letting in the industrious thief, to steal the greatcoats from the hall; or the dull muffin-man, who goes tinkling his early bell through the misty streets of the wintry morning? Granted, that neither of these—nor the sellers of early purl—nor the venders of saloop and cocoa—nor Covent Garden market-women—nor the late returners from the finish—nor he who starts up from the doorway, where he has passed the wretched night, to recommence the day's career of crime, and danger, and sorrow—can look upon the vast hive in which they dwell with over-refined feelings; and perhaps, to them, may come home unhappy Shelley's forcible line,

"Hell is a city very much like London!"

The valetudinarian, too, who wakes with nervous punctuality to swallow down the morning draught, prescribed by courtly Henry's bitter-covering skill, may curse the cats that, perched upon the tiles, salute their lady-loves with most discordant cries, and keep him from repose; and, with all the virulence of Despréaux, may exclaim upon the many hateful sounds of a town morning. But besides all these, there are sometimes persons, who, rising five hours before their usual time, come forth in all the freshness of the early day, stimulated by the vast effort that roused them from their beds, proud of a successful endeavour to get up, and excited by the novelty of the circumstance and the scene, and who rush on, admiring all the beauties as they go to take their places in the gay stage-coach.

Fully double the extent of ancient Athens in its days of greatest splendour—at least if the calculation of Aristides be correct—London lies in circuit more than one day's journey, and many a day's journey may be taken in the interior without ever threading the same streets. It would not matter much, therefore, in what corner of the town was placed the coach-office, whence, at an early hour of every lawful day, set forth a smart-looking vehicle, drawn by four fiery bays, for a distant town in —shire; but nevertheless, as it may be a satisfaction to the reader's mind, it is but fair to state, that the aforesaid four-inside light coach took its departure daily from that wild scene of bustle and confusion, which, within the last century or two, has usurped the site of what a modern writer of ancient romance, terms "the sweet little village of Charing," and which is now popularly called the Golden Cross, Charing Cross.

As the things that were, are now no more, and even three short years have made sad havoc amidst the brick antiquities of dear Pall Mall, it may not be amiss more particularly to commemorate the appearance—at the time our tale commences—of that agglomeration of street corners, Charing Cross, from which—on account I suppose of its beautiful vagueness—all rogues and insolvent debtors were wont to date their letters. But this commemoration had best be given in describing the effect of the whole upon a young and unsophisticated mind.

From a place that they call a hotel, in Piccadilly—Think of a man taking up his abode at a hotel in Piccadilly!—but he knew no better—From a hotel, in Piccadilly, at about half-past five o'clock on the morning of the last day of August, one thousand eight hundred and something, set out a hackney coach, containing within its sphere of rotten wood and rusty leather a small portmanteau on the front seat, and the portmanteau's master on the other. He was a well-made youth, of about five-and-twenty years of age, with firm, graceful, and yet powerful limbs, and a fresh clear complexion—not villainous red and white, but one general tone of florid health. His eye was blue and bright, and the clustering curls of fair hair—as pure Saxon as Sharon Turner's last new book—might have looked somewhat girlish, had it not been for the manly features and the free dauntless look that they overshadowed. At the same time, be it remarked, that there was something of melancholy, if not of gloom, in his aspect; but that did not prevent him—after the chambermaid had been satisfied, and the

waiter had been paid, and boots had had his fees, and the porter had claimed more than his due; and, in short, all the exactions of an inn had been played off upon him in succession—that did not prevent him, when fairly rolling away towards the top of the Haymarket, from gazing out upon the scene around him with a sufficient degree of open-eyed curiosity to make the waterman stick his tongue into his cheek, and mentally denominate him "a raw."

It may be necessary to inform the unlearned reader, that the sun rises, in the end of August, a few minutes after five in the morning, and at the time I speak of the great luminary was pouring a flood of radiance through the loaded air of the vast city, filling the long empty perspective of the streets with the golden mistiness of the morning light. Closed within the dull boards which defend the precious wares of many a careful tradesman from the cosmopolite fingers of the liberal Many, the shops exhibited nothing but the names and occupations of their various owners; but the wide streets, with all their irregular buildings, in the broad light and shade, were not without beauty of their own peculiar kind, distinct from all the mighty associations connected with their existence.

The coach rolled at the statute pace along Piccadilly, unobstructed by any thing, and, indeed, unencountered by any thing but two slow market carts, wending heavily towards Covent Garden, and another fac-simile of itself just overcoming—in order to take up some other early passenger—the vis inertiæ which had held it on the straw-littered stand for the last hour. In the Haymarket, however, the progression was more difficult; for there, already had congregated many a loaded cart, the drivers of which, as usual, had, with skilful zeal, contrived to place them as a regular fortification, obstructing every step of the way. Gin and purl, too, were reeking up to the sky from the various temples of the rosy god that line the west side of the street; and amidst the bargainings of some early dealers, and the pœans of the gin-drinkers, no one attended to the objurgations of the embarrassed coachman. Nevertheless, all these difficulties were at length removed by one means or another; and Cockspur Street opened wide before the traveller, exposing at the end, black with the smoke

of fires innumerable, the famous Statue and the girthless horse. On one side, wide and open, lay Whitehall, with all those offices whence many a time has issued the destiny of the world; on the other hand, dark and dingy, wound away the Strand, with the house of the Percys maintaining still the last aspect of a feudal dwelling to be found in London. The King's Mews, on which a violating hand had hardly yet been laid, occupied all the space to the left; and the flaming ensign of the Golden Cross, stuck up in front of a tall narrow-fronted house, told that the place of many coaches was before the traveller's eyes.

He found, on alighting, that he had arrived at least ten minutes before the time; and after having been cheated, as usual, by the hackney coachman, and gazed about the dull desolate yard, shut in by the high houses round, in the far shadows of which stood two or three red, blue, and yellow vehicles, all unpacked and unhorsed, he once more sauntered out through the low-browed arch which gave admission to the court, and amused himself with the wider scene exhibited by the street.

At that hour, one-half of Murillo's pictures find living representatives in the streets of London; and when the young traveller had moralized for a minute or two on some groups of beggar-boys playing round the Statue—had marked the sage and solemn pace with which an elderly waterman brought forth his breakfast to a coachman on the stand—and had listened to the Solon-like sayings of each upon the weather and the state of the nation—he was looking back to see whether the coming of the coach was hopeless, when the rushing noise of rapid wheels caught his ear, and he turned his eyes in the direction of the sound.

If people would but remark, they would find that they have presentiments of little events a thousand times more often than they have presentiments of great ones; and the feeling of the gallant Nelson was not more strong, that the sun of Trafalgar was the last that was destined to shine upon his glory, than was at that moment the conviction of the young traveller that those rolling wheels were about to bring him a companion for the stage-coach. Nor, let me tell you, gentle reader, is it a matter of small importance who is to be brought in such close contact with one for the next ten hours. What is life but a chain of those brief portions of eternity which man calls hours, so inseparably linked together that the first and the last, and every link throughout the series, have a mutual dependence and connexion with each other! Oh, let no one despise an hour! It is fully enough to change dynasties and overthrow empires—to make or mar a fortune—to win high renown or stain a noble name—to end our being or to fix our destiny here and hereafter, in time and through eternity. So awful a

thing is one hour—ay, one moment of active being!

The companion of the three hundred and sixty-fifth part of one out of seventy years, is a person to whom we may well attach some importance; and the young traveller looked with no small eagerness to see who was about to fill that station in relation to himself. The first thing that his eyes fell upon, as he turned round, was a dark brown cabriolet, whirled along with the speed of lightning by a tall bay horse, full of blood and action, and covered with harness, which, though somewhat elaborate and evidently costly, was guarded by scrupulous good taste from being gaudy. Behind the vehicle appeared a smart active boy in groom's apparel, but with no distinctive livery to designate him as the tiger of Colonel this, or the Earl of that, though a cockade in his hat told that his master pretended to either military or naval rank. Where the young traveller stood, the appearance of the driver was not to be discerned; but, from the style of the whole turn-out, he began to doubt that his anticipations in regard to their approaching companionship were fallacious, when,

dashing up to the pavement, the horse was suddenly drawn up, the groom sprang to the head, and the person within at length made his appearance.

He was a young man of about seven-and-twenty, tall, and rather gracefully than strongly made; but still with a breadth of chest, and a sort of firm setting on his feet, which spoke a greater degree of personal strength than appeared at a casual glance. His clothes were all of that peculiar cut which combines the most decided adherence to the prevailing fashion, with a very slight touch of its extravagance. Every thing, however, in the whole of his apparel, was in good keeping, as the painters call it; and though the colours that appeared therein, were such as no one but a man of rank and station in society would have dared to wear, the general hue of the whole was dark.

"He's a dandy!" thought the young traveller, with a somewhat contemptuous curl of the lip as the other descended from the cabriolet; but the moment after, hearing him bid the boy tell Swainson not to forget to give Brutus a ball on Wednesday night—and to walk Miss Liddy for an hour twice every day in the park, he concluded that he was a gentleman horse-jockey—a thing, in his unsophisticated ideas, equally detestable with a dandy. Scarcely had he come to this conclusion—and his conclusions, be it remarked, were formed very quickly—when the stranger strode rapidly past him. The cabriolet drove away, and its owner—with a quantity of glossy black hair escaping from under his hat, and mingling with whiskers more glossy still—entered the inn-yard, and proceeded to the coach-office.