he represents the Athenian women, tired of the Peloponnesian war, and ascribing its prolongation to the political incapacity of their husbands, as resolved upon taking the commonwealth into their own hands. The commentator, either for some purpose of latent raillery, or to try his hand at a paradox, had spun out a lengthened dissertation on gunocracy, or the government of women; asserting not only the practicability of an unmixed female republic, but its superiority over every known or existing form. The hypothesis was to Taylor's taste; and he reasoned with great force and learning in favour of gunocracy. I sate next to Sayers, who, in reply to a question I put to him to that effect, assured me that Taylor was quite serious. The married men of the club, however, would not listen to his hypothesis; swearing that their wives had quite power enough already. Nor was it possible to resist the imperturbable gravity with which he put forth his paradoxes. They kept up an unceasing grin on the laughter-loving face of Sayers; and they seldom excited the least opposition, beyond a pish! or a psha! from Ozias Linley,* himself not the least amusing oddity of the club,

It was upon the same evening, I recollect, that he proved to us, by a profusion of learning, and a copious citation of Anglo-Saxon records, with which his memory was well stocked, that Stonehenge, so far from being, according to the vulgar tradition, a Druidical temple, was nothing more than a compilation of huge Anglo-Saxon hail-stones, that fell on Salisbury Plain in the reign of Ina, and had been petrified by atmospheric exposure! How gravely also did he persuade a little attorney, who had been expressing his doubts as to the eligibility of taking a house for which he had been in treaty, near the cathedral, to lose no time in taking it; for that, according to the unerring laws of mental pathology, the vicinity of so noble an edifice † would enlarge his mind, inspire it with a taste for greatness and sublimity, and raise it above every thing mean and pettifogging! He was also very learned upon the antiquity and the emblematic meaning of signs; and told us, I recollect, that a very large volume might be compiled upon the subject, replete with valuable instruction. He made out the sign of the Holein-the-Wall, I remember, with great plausibility, to be deduced from the legend of Pyramus and Thisbe in Ovid, which, he said, as well as the Golden Fleece, was a common sign in England so far back as the reign of Henry the Eighth. The Cat and the Fiddle was a more strained solution. An aubergiste in Picardy had a cat, whose attachment to her master exceeded the more proverbial fidelity of his dog; and cats having, time out of mind, laboured under the unpopular imputation of being inconstant in their friendships, he hung up her portrait over his door when she died, and inscribed on it, in justice to her memory, "Voici un Chat fidèle." When the sign, which soon became common in France, was introduced into England, "Chat fidèle" was corrupted into the "Cat and Fiddle." But I shall never forget, that when he was asked for an explication of the Green Man, he out-Monboddoed Monboddo; for he galloped off into an elaborate hypothesis as to the original colour of mankind, maintaining it to have been green. Here Ozias

• Sheridan's brother-in-law.

A German philosopher has written copiously on the Moral and Pathological Influence of High Mountains.

Linley uttered his most emphatic pshaw! But Taylor went on without hearing it, and added, that the sign of the Green Man, being the most ancient sign in the world, was traditionary of that fact, signs or pictures being, he said, anterior to the use of letters in the progress of society, appealing to the picture-writing of the ancient Mexicans in illustration of his argument. In short, Taylor seemed to lead a life of hypothesis; nor could a child be more delighted with the soap-sud globules blown from a pipe, than this excellent and ingenious man with the inflated bubbles, equally light and evanescent, of the German metaphysics and German philology, to which he was so intensely addicted.

Mr. Hudson Gurney for some years frequented this singular club. Amongst those whose talents at that period illustrated their native city, he was the most remarkable for the playful vivacity of his conversation. Nor has maturer life disappointed the promise of his early days. Born to great affluence, and nursed from childhood in the lap of opulence, he has neither wasted his prosperity in the pursuit of tasteless pleasures, nor in its exclusive and selfish enjoyments. To an elegant and polished taste for the arts, and that kind of literature with which taste is conversant, he adds a correct knowledge of political economy, not of that unsubstantial and umbratile science which exists only in books, but of the sinewy and muscular science which is the result of practical experience. In the House of Commons few deserve attention morefew would reward it more, had it not been for a voice constitutionally infirm, and pitched by nature too low for a public assembly. His personal character is that cluster of kindly virtues which the ancient stoics comprized in the word kovovonμoovvn, and which spreads itself out in multiplied diffusions of beneficence to mankind. But if, with the modesty inseparable from merit, he shrinks from the tribute of honest admiration, it is not the less due to him. Yet who would wound the delicacy he reveres? I desist, therefore, from the portraiture, and the more willingly, inasmuch as it is with moral as with physical delineation, an injury to the harmonious and summary wholeness of a great character to attract the eye to small and subordinate parts. In the easy and instructive conversation of Dr. Sayers, Hudson Gurney found great delight. He cultivated his friendship assiduously during his life, and at his death, carried on an amiable contest with his only surviving relative, for the satisfaction of erecting at his own expense a monument to his friend's memory, and he relinquished it only in deference to what he deemed the prior rights of affinity.

There yet remain one or two truly original characters of the almost extinct class of humourists who belonged to this agreeable provincial club, to whom a distinct delineation is due. They will be found, I trust, amusing chapters in the history of human oddities, and will do no discredit to our collection. My space for the present is exhausted.

M. P. for Newport, Isle of Wight.

THE FEASTE OF ALLE DEUILES.

AN ANCIENT BALLAD.

BY LORD NUGENT.

A GOODLYE romaunte you shal heere, I wis,
'Tis ycleped of Alle Deuiles Halle,
Likewyse of the Feaste of Alle Deuiles it is,
And of what dyd there befalle.

For a pleasaunte thinge is this historye,
And much delyte doe I

In one so straunge, yett so true perdie
That noe man can ytt denye.

O the boarde is sett, and the guestes are mett
To drinke in Alle Deuiles' Halle,

The guestes are drye, but the walles are wett,
And the doores are barred on alle.

And why are the tables in ordere sett,
And why is the wassaile spredd,

And why are they mett while the walles are wett
To carouse o'er the uaultes of the dedd ?

The Baronne of Hawkesdenne rose wyth the sunne
On the daye of Alle Sayntes in the morne,
A terrible feate hee had thoughte uponne,

And a terrible oathe he had sworne.

From holye Church full manie a roode
Hee had ravishede of landys fayre,

And where Alle Saintes' Abbaye had latelye stoode
Hys holde hee had builded there.

For to hym oure good Kinge Harrye had giuen
For hys fee that riche Abbaye,

When the angels bequeathed for the seruice of heuen
Were ta'en from the Church awaye.

Yett firmlye and well stoode the proude Chappell,
Though ne monk ne preeste was there,

Butt for festival nowe was hearde the bell
That wont to be hearde for prayere.

And those sayntelye walles of olde gray stone
Did witnesse foul revelrye,

And they shooke to heare theire echoes owne
Wordes of ribaulderie.

"Now builde mee a Halle," the Baronne sayde,
"And builde ytt both wide and high,

And builde ytt mee ouer the moulderinge dedde,
As they rotte in cemeterye.

To those who are well read in the interesting work of autobiography lately published by Sir Jonah Barrington, so singular will the coincidence appear between the relation he gives of the strange fate of Mr. Joseph Kelly and Mr. Peter Alley, in "My Brother's Hunting Lodge," and the catastrophe of the following tale, that, if a doubt could be entertained of the authenticity of the first-mentioned narrative, it might almost he thought to be founded on this ancient ballad, which appears to have been written about the middle of the sixteenth century by a person who was himself a witness of the event he celebrates. As it is, the two stories will probably be taken as strongly confirmatory of each other.

"For longe haue I lacked a banquettinge Halle,
Meete for my feeres and me,

For our mirthe the olde Chappell is alle too smalle,
Soe our butterye-hatch ytt shal bee.

"Thys aunciente place I wyl newlye calle,

And christene ytt in goode wyne,

Thys Church of Alle Sayntes shall be Alle Deuiles' Halle,
Ånd the daye, too, Alle Deuiles' and myne.

"On the firste of Nouembere thys lordeshippe fayre

My heritage was made,

From noe Saynte dydd I craue ytt by vowe or by prayere,
But I called to the Deuile for ayde.

"Longe, longe did I striue, and on hope I leaned,
And att courte dyd uainlye toyle,

And hys highnesse was harde, tyll I uowed to the fiende
A share in the Churche's spoyle.

"Nowe onn thys daye beginneth a moneth of cloudes,
And of deedes that maye not bee forgiuen,

When the self-sleyne dedde looke upp from theire shroudes, See no blew, and despaire of heuen.

"And eache yeare thys our festiuall daye wee wyl keepe,
Saynte nor angelle a place shal haue,

Butt darke spiritts wyth us shal carouse pottle deepe,
And we'll welcome suche from the graue.

"O there wyll wee mocke the skulles belowe,
And we'll grinne more wyde than theye,

And we'll synge more loude thann the owletts doe,
And louder than preestes wolde praye.

"And our dogges wyth eache pate that is bleached and bare Shal sporte them rounde and rounde,

Or tangle theire jaws in the drye dedde haire,
As theye route in the hollowe grounde.

"Att the wildered batte wee wyl loudlye laugh,

As hee flitts rounde hys mansyons olde,

And the earthe worme shal learne redde wyne to quaff,
As he reeles in his slymie folde.

"We wyl barre oute the blessede lyghte fulle welle,
And we'll heare noe larke to disturbe us,

For the larke synges to heuen, butt wee to helle,
Noe hymninge fooles shal curbe us.

"For a frend in our neede is indeede a frend,

And suche frend wus the Deuile to mee;

And thys halle I wyll builde to thys dutyfulle ende,
That my cuppe fellowe hee maye bee.'

O Nouembere is neare wyth the closinge yeare,

And the Halle is unfinishede quite,

And what liuinge menne dyd reare in the day, ytt dyd appeare That dedde handes dyd undoe at nighte.

O the ceilinge and walles theye are rough and bare,

And the guestes theye are comynge nowe ;

O how shal the Baronne feaste them there,

And how shal hee keepe hys vowe?

Att the builders he raued furiouslye,

Nor excuse wolde hee graunte att alle;
Butt, as one poore wretch low bent on hys knee,
He strake oute hys braynes wyth hys malle.

And highe as hee raysed hys bloudie hande
Ryght fearfullie thus spake hee:
"Yff att eue thys halle unfinishede stande,
Not one knaue of yee liuinge shal bee!"

Thenn the builders theye playstered dilligentlye,
For lyfe or deth playstered theye,

And, a dagger's depthe, thicke coates three
Theye had spredde on the walles that daye.

"Sore feare worketh welle!" quoth the proude Baronne,
As he strode to the festall chayre,

And loude laughed the guestes to looke uponne
The worke so smoothe and fayre.

The pine torches rounde a braue lighte dydd flynge,

A redd moone through the darke nighte streaminge,

And smalle thoughte hadd the guestes of the waynscottinge
Howe wett, and softe, and steaminge.

Nowe theye haue barred faste the doores belowe,

And eke the windowes on highe;

And withoute stoode tremblinge the vassailes a rowe
Att the bolde impietie.

O wee tremblede to heare theire reuelrie,

For I was there that nighte,

A sabbath ytt seemede of Deuilrie,

And of Witches att theyre delyte.

There was chauntinge thenne amayne, butt the pure and holiestrayne Of sweete musicke hadde loste ytt's feelinge,

And there was harpe and lute, but lyttel dydd ytt boote,

For the daunce was butt beastlie reelinge.

And the feates were ille tolde of chiualrye olde

Amiddste dronkennesse and dinne,

And the softe laye of loue colde noe tendernesse moue

Ynn hartes of ryott and sinne.

Three nightes ytt endured, and the staringe owle
Was scared from hys ivie throne,

And the poor currs dismallie answered a howle

More senselesse thanne theyre own.

And dronker theye waxed, and dronker yett,
And each manne dyd uainly laboure,

By reasone of manie speakers, to gett
Meet audience from his neyboure.

These wordes thenn stammerede the loude Baronne,
"Maye I ne'er quitt thys goode cheere,

Tyll our maystere come to feaste wyth hys owne!"

And thatt was the laste wee colde heare.

The third morne rose fulle fayre, and the torches ruddye glare Through the windowes streamed noe more,

And when the smalle birde rose from hys chambere in the boughes The festiuall shout was o'er.

Sept.-VOL. XXIII. NO. XCIII.

S