453

1865.]

All was over. Little Kitty
From her seat was led away,
And I struggled to the entrance

Hoping she would pass that way. How I longed for leave to tell her All my heart would have me say, How I feared that like a vision

She once more would pass away.

After long impatient waiting

Kitty came, but would not see, Though I'm sure she felt my presence, For she turned her face from me. It was agony to see her

Pass away without a word And my heart grew sick and trembling, Sick and faint with hope deferred.

For a moment I was spell-bound,

Or like one transformed to stone; But I roused myself to follow

Where my heart and thoughts had flown. 66 Harry! Suddenly a voice cried,

Who'd have thought of seeing you?
Come and dine with us, old fellow,
If you've nothing else to do.

"George will be so glad to see you At his house in Sussex Square; We have quite a merry party,

All the girls are staying there. You will hardly know my sisters, You've not seen them such a while. Isn't Alexandra lovely?

Doesn't she know how to smile?

"I was at the railway station, And I had a splendid view;

But my sisters and my cousins

Were in Fleet Street;-where were you?" Thus my old friend Charley chatted,

While we slowly made our way Through the streets so gaily crowded On that memorable day.

We were rather late for dinner,

But they soon made room for me,
And I saw that little Kitty

Was once more my vis-à-vis.
To the friendly greetings round me
I could scarcely make replies,
For I felt too much bewildered,

And could hardly trust my eyes.
Kitty's face looked grave with wonder,
And her sweet eyes seemed to say,
"Do not let my cousins fancy

We have met before to-day."
So I tried to pay attention
To the lady by my side,
Talking of the royal marriage

And the young and lovely bride.

I was glad when we were summoned
To the drawing-room for tea;
But among the fair young faces
Kitty's face I could not see.
Charley found her in a corner,
And he caught her by a curl,
Saying, "This is Kitty Lucas,

Uncle George's youngest girl.

"Kitty, why have you been hiding?

This is Captain Harry Blair;

He was my best friend at Eton,

All the while that I was there." Kitty said, with easy freedom,

As she gave her hand to me, "Any friend of Cousin Charley I am very glad to see."

(She pretended not to fathom
All my love and my delight,
Though I'm sure she knew I wanted
To propose that very night.)
Then she asked a dozen questions,
All about the fair Princess:
"Do you think her very pretty?
Did you like her style of dress?

"Did you see her queenly forehead? And her sweet and friendly smile? Did you notice Albert Edward,

How he watched her all the while? I have heard she calls him 'Bertie,' And I really think it's true, For no doubt they love each other Just as other people do."

Thus she chatted. On our spirits

What a sudden change had come! Now, with seeming ease and freedom, She could speak, while I was dumb. Restless hope and joy had driven

All my measured words away: While I sat in troubled silence

From my side she stole away.

Stole away to join the dancers,
And I watched-till jealous pain,
Strong and sharp, revived my courage,
And I sought her out again.
Then I asked if she remembered
When and where we first had met;
And her ready, "I remember"
In my ears is ringing yet.

"I remember, 'twas last summer,
And you wore an Albert chain,
Like the one I gave to Charley

Just before he went to Spain. In your hand you held a volume Written by a friend of mine, And you did not seem to like it,

For you scarcely read a line !"

Thus with playful ease she chatted
Just to keep me still at bay,
And half vexed, half charmed, I listened,
Till at last I dared to say:
"Did you hear the prayer I uttered,

That we two might meet again?
Kitty, now the prayer is answered,
Tell me, is it all in vain?

"Kitty, do not speak so gaily,

Do not look so much at ease."
Then she answered, archly smiling,
"You are very hard to please."
But her voice began to falter:
She grew timid, I grew bold;
And that night before we parted,
I my tale of love had told.

Of the happy days that followed
Scarce a word I dare to say.
Kitty whispered that she loved me,
'Ere a month had passed away;
With love-light her eyes were beaming,
With new joy my heart was stirred,
And her hand in mine was trembling,

When she spoke the whispered word. Kitty's love was worth the winning,

Kitty's all the world to me; Kitty says through life's long journey, She will be my vis-à-vis. We are happy, we are hopeful,

We are waiting for the spring, Then the old church-bells at Dover, With a merry peal shall ring.

Art Journal.

M. E. R.

OLD AND NEW LONDON.

Allons, Messieurs les Artistes, tenez vos crayons. London is now rapidly losing all its old features. Upon the pen and pencil must we soon depend for all knowledge of what the ancient city looked like; it will be impossible to realize the past by a ramble down an old street which, by its lonely insignificance, may have been spared from change. Town land is thrice valuable, and trade is exigeant. The quietest lanes are invaded, and where lonely old houses had slept in the sunshine for centuries, vast and busy offices and warehouses rear their giant heads. The transformation of Paris in a few years is complete; all its historic sites, with very few exceptions, are gone, and its interest to all but the flaneur is gone with them; London has lately imitated its Gallic sister, and at fabulous cost, has destroyed old buildings and created new, with a rapidity that has outstripped the record of either pen or pencil, and many curious topographical features are gone for ever. The few that do remain should be portrayed at once: not by photography, which bears in itself the elements of decay, but by honest, faithful drawing, such as gives value to the works of that most industrious antiquary and admirable etcher, John Thomas Smith, whose labors will increase in value as time adds years to their age; or to those of still more minute truthfulness, which came from the atelier of the elder Cooke, and with which no photograph can compare for clearness and beauty.

Washington Irving once rambled about Eastcheap as he did at Stratford-uponAvon, " chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancies," but producing reminiscences that gave vitality to all he touched upon. It would be difficult now to conjure up any picture of the past in any historic locality of London; all speaks of busy to-day, or busier to-morrow; in the fever-haste to get rich none spare a thought for the past, few reverence what it has confided to our care. Historic associations meet with little sympathy. When the great conqueror of antiquity destroyed cities recklessly, he spared the humble house of Pindar in the midst of the Thebes he had so cruelly doomed ; for even the stern heart of Alexander felt the influence of gazing on the home of one who had done so much to elevate the mind. It may be doubted if such a relic would be spared in the English or French metropolis by any merchantprince or railway contractor.

Leigh Hunt rambled through "the Town" of his boyhood, and has made himself our companion, as he will be the still more valued companion of our latest posterity; by the charming information he imparts so pleasantly on the history of the old streets and their former inhabitants. No writer on London as it was, is so agreeable to read; we listen to his words as to those of an unpretentious but well-informed old friend, and as we pass over the pages of his book, almost feel that we are walking the ancient highways in his company. Walter Thornbury, the most recent of our topographic guides, has happily termed our metropolis "haunted London ;" it is indeed haunted by the memories of the great, or the remarkable; so that every street and every old house becomes an illustrated chapter of history; what that history is may be best traced in the voluminous pages of that most industrious and original compilation-Cunningham's " Handbook of London;" here, indeed, we may revel in the rich literary anecdote which makes sacred many a street or house in the mind's eye of the student, who, book in hand, may re-create the past glories of various now dingy localities once festive with wit and hilarity. Let the plodding worshiper of Maimon think how small a share of attention he or his broth

er millionaires will ever attain in comparison with the rich in intellect. A man of enormous wealth died lately, but what interest can he raise in comparison with the poor boy-poet Chatterton?

Take, then, some good writer on London, study him well, and go over the locality he speaks of while that locality remains. It is an intellectual pleasure we may not long possess. Everywhere, "improvements," real or fancied-"necessary changes" sometimes equally visionary-are clearing away all the historic landmarks left to us. It is but two years ago, since the writer of these lines contributed to Chambers's "Book of Days" an essay on such localities as time has spared us of London before the great fire; and in that paper quoted Winchester Street, Moorfields, as a fair, and almost unique example of an old street. Now it is nearly all gone, to be replaced by modern warehouses of gigantic proportion. Twenty years ago, many similar streets remained; now we have not one. Occasionally the deep digging, necessitated by modern works, lays bare ancient foundations of much interest. Such has been the case with the great railway works crossing Thames Street to Cannon S reet. Here, the workmen came across the foundation walls of Roman buildings of vast size and strength. As if to put to shame our modern bricklaying, the Roman brick or stone could not be dissevered from its mortar, and resisted disseverance even by the pickaxe; gunpowder was ultimately used to split to pieces what it became necessary to remove. These foundations were laid bare soon after the terrible fire in 1666, and were seen and described by the great architect Wren; portions were again laid bare about twenty years ago, when large business premises were being erected on the spot; it will be long ere they are again seen, as they are now beneath the foundations of the railway works. This short portion of line between the Thames and Cannon Street has displaced many interesting features of old London life: the Steelyard, a warehouse for the use of the merchantmen of the Low Countries, its gate being surmounted with the arms of Henry VIII., quaintly carved; and many good old houses of the time of Charles II. and William III., with ware

houses attached, telling of days when citizens, however rich, resided at their places of business. In Mark Lane there still remains one such old mansion, with an entrance hall of paneled oak, staircase thickly balustraded with twisted columns, and a passage to the garden, where a leaden cupid still spouts water as a fountain amid old fig-trees.

Opposite Mark Lane, on the other side of Leadenhall Street, stands the church of St. Andrew Undershaft, celebrated among city churches for containing the monument of the great antiquary, John Stow. Opposite the church was a range of old houses, quite Elizabethan in character, which were only removed at the close of last year. St. Mary-Axe and the neighboring St. Helen's, recently abounded with fine specimens of residences, such as may never again be erected within the precincts of the City. It is now a vast warehouse, or mart; yet people living remember when Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate, was chiefly the residence of merchants who dwelt near to their places of business, as did the elder branches of the Rothschild family to the uninviting Judengasse, at Frankfort-on-the-Maine.

Let

Until the end of the last century, after passing Houndsditch, "fresh fields and pastures new" awaited at no great distance such as were tired of being "in populous city pent." Moorfields, literally, was a place of fields, with shady walks under trees, and all beyond the Artillery Ground and Bunhill Fields was pretty open country, across which paths led to pleasant villages, where "cakes and ale" awaited London visitors. any one who wishes to breathe-in imagination-the "fresh air" of the northern side of London, forget for the present the dense mass of streets and houses that crowd over and far beyond Islington, and remember only that fifteen years ago the "archers' marks" still remained in the fields between the City Road, the canal, and Islington; marks which, put up in the middle of the seventeenth century, succeeded such as had been there from the old time when the practice of archery was enforced by law, and considered most proper and wholesome for city apprentices; being to the young men of the Elizabethan era what the Volunteer movement is to our own.

have become hideous in our 1. Contrast Ford's Hospital v, enriched by the most exod carving, with a modern stitue of all attempt at aught ain walls perforated by doors ws. The late architect, Pugin, mortal offence to the members n profession by publishing a series of architectural parallels, he thus contrasted an old work ew one. It exasperated, but it o cure, a very self-sufficient body lemen. We have no longer rry Hill Gothic, or Wyattville

such as disfigures our noblest house, Windsor Castle. When commenced "improvements" by mation of Regent Street, that class hitecture was sufficiently debased. - said of the Roman emperor that he Rome of brick and left it of marso it has been asked for Nash

is not our Nash, too, a very great master? found London brick, and left it all plaster!"

is this sham architecture which is so liarly offensive; it has not the honand consequently it never has the factory effect, of the simplest timber use of the sixteenth century. Fortutely this fact has obtruded itself so ng that at last our tradesmen are ashamed it. City warehouses are now built in ermanised Gothic, a cross style beween a monastery and a storehouse. We have yet to learn architectural fitness, but we must wait, be thankful for present progress, and spend hundreds of thousands of pounds in public and private buildings, buying that experience which is already cheaply at hand in elementary books, if those who order our buildings would read them. We are now in danger of streets of most heterogeneous character, made up of palatial offices and warehouses of all designs, like the mixed prints in a cheap portfolio. A minister of public works prevents much of this abroad, but the English love of liberty allows of any amount of eccentricity at home.

Before all is gone that time has left to us of old London, to be succeeded by something so very different, let us once more look upon the old localities, endeared to the historic student by so very

many associations, and think over the great men of the past whose presence made these houses famous. Places that we looked upon but two years since are gone without the record of a sketch. The workman's pickaxe knocks down as rapidly as the auctioneer's hammer, and while we look around us, that which was "going"-is" gone

Bentley's Miscellany.

DON SEBASTIAN OF PORTUGAL.
BY MRS. ALFRED M. MÜNSTER.

HISTORY Shows a long list of royal imposters, and of them all there is none more remarkable than he who, twentythree years after the supposed death of Don Sebastian of Portugal, laid claim to the crown of that country. In truth, while reading the meager and imperfect records of the investigations to which the claim gave rise, one is strongly inclin ed to believe in his pretentions, which raised uneasy doubt even in those whose interest it was to repudiate the truth and justice of his story. All evidence tending to establish the facts he proclaimed were as much as possible suppressed at the time, and afterwards garbled and misrepresented in the relation, so that a very one-sided statement of the case is all that has descended to us.

Don Juan, Prince of Portugal, whose short life had been a lingering torture, died eighteen days before his son, Don Sebastian, was born. The young widow, Doña Juana of Spain, religious almost to monomania, saw in her husband's death a manifestation of Heaven's will that she should be disencumbered of earthly ties, the better to devote herself to the austere devotional life which had always been her ideal. It was, therefore, with something akin to pleasure that, in compliance with the laws of Portugal, she resigned her fatherless boy to the guardianship of his paternal grandparents, King John and Queen Catharina; and from the time the infant heir to the throne was four months old his mother never again beheld him, for at that period the Emperor Charles V. summoned his widowed daughter to Spain, there to assume the regency on the occasion of the marriage