-applaud Milanie, and sup with the Corinthians in St. James's Square at two Sunday morning:good bye,-hope to see you at church to-morrow, if up in time, or meet ye at Sir Joseph's at night; -good-bye."

On the whole, he must have had his hands pretty full during these years without counting the somewhat fitful essays in the London. In fact, he did nothing there, so far as we can see, between September, 1820, and September, 1821. He was, let us take it for granted, better engaged; what with his love of Art, his fondness for horses, his "modest competence," and a rich uncle at Linden House, Turnham Green, to visit when he chose. Besides, he had formed around him, thanks to his literary and artistic predilections and his apparently easy position, a pleasant little circle of friends, not only authors and painters, but private acquaintances, such as the Abercrombys.

It was a small family at Mortlake in rather humble circumstances. There was a widow with one daughter and a son by her first husband, Mr. Ward, and two daughters, Helen Frances Phoebe and Madeleine, by her second, Lieutenant Abercromby, of the Ordnance.1 Who and what Mr. Ward was I have failed to ascertain. Lieutenant Abercromby died in 1812; and as he did not leave a shilling behind him, an application was made to the Board of Ordnance, and granted, for a small allowance to his two children-107. a year a piece.

1 Helen was born 12th March, 1809, and Madeleine during her parents' residence in Ireland, in 1810.

After her second spouse's decease Mrs. Abercromby took in lodgers (perchance amongst them Mr. Wainewright); and this, with a small property at Mortlake worth about 1007. a year derived from her first husband, I conclude, formed her entire income. No wonder, then, if the poor old lady ran in debt with her agent, Mr. James Stewart, an auctioneer in the neighbourhood.

Miss Frances Ward, a young lady of the most prepossessing appearance, took the heart of Wainewright completely captive; they were married. The registers of Mortlake, where the Abercrombys lived, and where they are still remembered, contain no entry of the event; but I suppose that the union took place somewhere between 1820 and 1824. At the latter date Wainewright would have been exactly thirty. Talfourd intimates that a sum of 5,2001. was settled on Wainewright and his wife at their marriage; but that very learned judge must refer to Wainewright's own "modest competence," to borrow his own expression, "derived," (I still quote Wainewright's words), "from his parents." As the lady's family is said to have been very poor, and her husband was left an orphan at an early age, it is scarcely to be believed that the 5,000l. and odd Four per Cent. stock was settled at the time of marriage in the manner suggested. It is evident to me, on the contrary, that the money or property was simply the estate held in trust for Wainewright's benefit by one of his paternal uncles, Robert Wainewright the solicitor, and three other persons.

I trace the young people to a place [Hampton Court?] thirteen or fourteen miles from Hyde Park Corner, in the early days of their married life. Perhaps they moved about, occasionally staying at Linden House with Uncle Griffiths. There is a certain indication that one or two of the earlier articles in the London Magazine were written in the neighbourhood of Box Hill. Mrs. Abercromby could not afford to see much of them. Her resources were, I apprehend, slenderer than ever, and her two girls had only the special annuity from the office of £10 a year each until they became of age. But Wainewright's "modest competence," assisted by the settlement, kept them above want, and his prospects from his uncle were excellent. There was no anxiety for the future; and Mr. Griffiths was already far advanced in years.

Meanwhile, Wainewright occupied his time very creditably and congenially with his pen and pencil. He still sent papers at intervals to the London in the course of 1822, and even down to January, 1823, when he printed his valedictory address, where he enlarges much on his own history, and pronounces an eulogium on his colleagues. He took sketches and likenesses of his friends. He drew a charming little portrait of Helen Abercromby, who was now a fair and graceful girl of twelve or fourteen; it is a head only, in coloured chalk, executed with great care as regards the features and contour of the face, with the hair in curls. The portion of the neck shown might per

haps have been improved by a little more shading. He also took Madeleine-only a head in crayonit must have been a rather later piece of work, and, I am informed by those who should know best, that it is a less truthful resemblance. But he also devoted a good deal of time and attention to the treatment of subjects intended for his own private portfolio exquisite delineations of the female form, and designs which, regarded from an unprofessional point of view, might have been characterized as decidedly erotic. The only specimen of this class which has fallen in my way is a study from the well-known leg-comparing episode related in Grammont's Memoirs, in which one of the Court beauties, Miss Price, is made to figure.

Charles Lamb's testimony surely favours the assumption that Wainewright had little or nothing to do with the London Magazine after 1823. In a letter to Bernard Barton of that year, he says:"The London,' I fear, falls off. I linger among the creaking rafters, like the last rat; it will topple down, if they don't get some buttresses. They have pulled down three: Hazlitt, Procter, and their best stay, kind, light-hearted Wainewright, their Janus ;" and, again, to the same correspondent he remarks about the same time :— "I miss Janus, and O, how it [the Magazine] misses Hazlitt!"

Once more, the veiled author of "The Memoir of a Hypochondriac," in the London for October, 1822, takes occasion to apologise for his intrusion on Wainewright's familiar province :-" And so

farewell to painting. If I have trespassed on the preserve of Mr. Weathercock-(by the bye, why does not Mr. Weathercock go on with his pleasant lectures on prints and painters? Why does he, like a coy and beautiful virgin, shun the eye of his lovers, the 'admiring public?' Is there not much still to speak of-fields that remain to be won? Let him write again—and again)—if I have trespassed on Mr. Weathercock's preserve, I trust that gay and gentle critic will excuse it."

But the Weathercock was declared to be "steadfast for lack of oil," and the final paper of Janus in the number for January, 1823, produced this editorial note significant of his retirement from periodical writing :-"The winter must be very hard-as it was expected to be--for honest Master Janus Weathercock has, in the present number, 'composed his decent head and breathed his last.' But we are acquainted with his tricks, and well know how subject he is to wilful trances and violent wakings. The newspapers told us the other day of a person who could counterfeit death to such a nicety, as to deceive even an undertaker; now our readers must not be surprised to find Janus get up, after his laying out, and go about his ordinary concerns. Depend upon it, readers, he resembles the Spectator's sleeper at the Cock and Bottle,' and is no more dead than we are!"

Nor does the scrap in the number for February, 1826, under the familiar signature, quite prove the contrary, since there is a look about it, as if it had reached the Magazine at second hand-some waif