completely than Queen Caroline over George the Second? In the history of the Turkish Sultans, the women who have exercised most power, did so as mothers, and as discarded Sultanas, rather than as Sultanas in full power. The love and respect of man for woman is perhaps greatest, when sexual sentiments are completely set aside. And yet the public would no more allow George the Fourth to have a female friend, than political circumstances and other causes would allow him to have a male one. He, the King, was the Paria, denied every privilege, every pleasure, every justice."

Such are my brief reminiscences of my clerical and convivial friend's Memoirs. Having chronicled which, I proceed with my own.

What a miserable end was Lord Castlereagh's! and from a cause which certainly was the most remote from his nature and habits. He was of a cold temperament, the true one for politicians. For naturalists, in their great division of animals into the cold-blooded and hotblooded, ought to have left an intermediate space for politicians. He had been blind to all the blandishments of Vienna, nor could he understand such weaknesses as those of Gentz, which his brother, Lord Londonderry, has so feelingly but somewhat exaggeratedly depicted. His Lordship had hitherto passed through life, like his friend Pitt, unstained with even the soupçon of an amorous intrigue. If he had indulged in any, they were of a low, obscure, and ephemeral kind. Whether it sprang out of one of them, or whether it sprang out of nothing, it appears that in the zenith of his political career, he was assailed by the threat of vile accusations of the vilest crime, got up without the shadow of either proof or probability, but still boldly urged by a gang of ruffians, male and female, who made such accusations their profession. The natural mode of setting so vile and false an accusation at defiance, and either prosecuting the offender, or waiting tranquilly to repel the slander, was open to any man, save the Marquis of Londonderry. He was the most unpopular man in the country. The mob, nay, the people would at that time have grasped at the slightest shadow of a calumny against him, and the hatred borne to him would have prevented just credit being paid to his declaration. His Lordship saw, therefore, that whatever course he took, political hostility would make the most of it, and overwhelm him with obloquy and with torture. The thought preyed on an already overworked mind, and produced a nervous irritability, that rendered him impatient of repose, and finally of existence. He visited the Prince in one of his paroxysms, and spoke wildly. The matter-offact Duke did not know what to make of him. Though, had he consulted such a friend, he might have obtained courageous counsel, and relief. He preferred keeping his cancer torture in his heart, where it gnawed and gnawed, till it forced the unfortunate statesman to turn a knife against his own throat.

Englishmen were really at a discount in those days in the way of fitness for official place. Lord Melville filled every cranny with Scotchmen. Lord Castlereagh, though English, had preferred the Irish, as far more available instruments. When it is considered, that the Wellesleys were Irish, Canning ditto, it must be thought the sister kingdom recompensed itself fully for allowing Englishmen to be their Chancellors and to fill the episcopal seats. Even Castlereagh's whipper-in was an Irishman. And certainly never was there such a whipper-in before or since as Billy Holmes. He once made two dead men vote in a divi

sion of the House of Commons. How he did it, I have heard him tell, and did perfectly comprehend at the time; but the legerdemain has escaped my recollection; and in truth for any other person than Billy himself to tell the story would be sacrilege.

Master Holmes entered Trinity College, Dublin, some year of the last century, years that were far more jovial than their fellows of the present century. Students used to scale walls, beat the watch, get hauled before magistrates first, and then compound with their own proctor. Temperance societies formed the exception, not the rule, and Holmes did not belong to them, whether they were the one or the other. It happened that at a certain festival, held by students at the room of one of the party, fierce rivalry seized the guests upon a topic or frailty too common. This was, who should drink the most, and with most impunity. To whatever extravagance of potations some proceeded, or offered to proceed, Holmes out-topped them, by offering, for some consideration, in the shape of a bet, to swallow half a pint of raw whiskey over and above what he had already imbibed. His bet was taken; and was no sooner taken than the fiery draught was poured forth, and quaffed by the young dare-devil. The feat had not been long accomplished when its effects manifested themselves upon poor Holmes. No courage or self-possession could resist them, and he fell prostrate. Whatever the momentary exultation of the offerer of the bet, it was soon changed to alarm for the fate of the toper. Surgical aid was called in; and these competent authorities declared that the only hope of preserving life in the patient, was to keep him awake. A deep slumber, it was pro nounced, would probably end in his extinction. All the resources of art and ingenuity were therefore applied to Holmes's body to prevent the spirit from having its full effect as an opiate. He was cuffed and pulled, shaken and pinched. Trumpets were blown, and unheeded; and at last hot irons were had recourse to, and applied to those parts of the body which promised the least dangerous results of such au application. The calves of his legs were treated, as horses' fetlocks are at times, and seared by fire, the oddest initiation for a politician and a legislator, or for a driver of legislators, that a constitutional writer, however fabulous, could imagine.

These precautions were successful. They recalled Billy Holmes's spirit from the place, to which he had well-nigh sent it. They saved his life, but did not preserve equally intact his university reputation. The story got wind, attracted the attention of the college authorities who thought it a good and grave opportunity for making an example: such excesses were too common, and the brawls which proceeded from them incessant. Billy, therefore, like other great men, was expelled the university. Whether the church lost a bishop, the law a dignitary, or medicine a great authority or operator, story does not say, nor, pro bably the hero of the story know. At all events, Holmes shook the academic dust off his feet, and set himself to appeal to the only portals to employment in Ireland at the time, those of the dominant families. He somehow or another obtained access to the Knoxes, great landlords, great politicians, great Orangemen, and Tories. After some demurs and delays, many promises and almost as many disappointments, Holmes was appointed secretary to a general of the name, who had consented to take some West India command.

"Holmes embarked at Portsmouth with the general in his capacity of

secretary, and no doubt made himself forthwith comfortable and useful. It happened, however, that, as the ship was creeping along the coast toward Falmouth, the general discovered that he had forgotten a writingdesk, containing very important papers. He could not go without these papers. The general, therefore, caused Holmes to be put on shore at Weymouth, with orders to post to London, recover the desired box, and then post with it down to Falmouth, at which the vessel was to wait. Nothing could have been more easy in these railway times; but in the days of posting, even with post-horses and of stage-coaches, time and the road were not so manageable. Holmes used every activity, got to London, possessed himself of the box, hurried to Falmouth, and looked to occupy again his secretary's berth. But he was too late: the wind had arisen fresh and fair, and so promising, that the captain would not wait for even a general's exigencies; and, after glancing at Falmouth, not putting into it, set all sail for the West Indies. Billy Holmes thus remained behind with the box of his patron's papers, anxious for his place, and resolved to pursue it and the general by the first vessel. He was not long in finding one, and embarking; and he hoped to greet General Knox at Jamaica with the presence of his lost secretary and lost box of papers.

Billy Holmes, in good time and in good luck, as he ever was, arrived at Jamaica; but General Knox had not arrived there; and he seemed in no hurry to arrive, to the perplexity of his secretary, whom some strange fate always prevented from entering upon his function. At last the news came that the vessel, which carried the general and all his suite, except his secretary, had gone to the bottom of the ocean, every soul on board perishing. What luck it was for Billy, that the general had forgotten his writing-desk, and that he had been late in hurrying back with it!

Holmes was a man of business and activity. He did something more than merely bring back what had been entrusted to him; but proceeding to the island, which was to have been the seat of the General's government, he gathered up all the valuables that had been already procured and sent out, brought home what was worth bringing, and disposed of the remainder. In short, without waiting for orders, he did what was just and needful. The family were grateful, and Holmes was recommended to Lord Castlereagh. By the political chieftain he was employed in a great many tasks, and sent on a great many errands. But he was not a penman or a bookman,—a bad clerk; but if he got employ as a man of the world, to deal with men and with the world, that was the place for Holmes. Such tastes and qualities are highly estimated and most available, but then the candidate must be of a higher and more independent grade of life, than was Billy Holmes. His genius, however, supplied these deficiencies, for Billy one morning married a lady of rank. Lord Castlereagh forthwith thrust him into Parliament; nor had he been a session in it, ere he had acquired all the personal knowledge, skill, and aptitude necessary for the mysterious and confidential post of ministerial whipper-in. The whippers-in of the present day dine in clubs, and send missions to get their flock together. In Billy's day, voters were not to be had in readiness; they had to be dined and drilled. Billy had a good home in Grafton House, and a batterie de cuisine, chiefly for the purpose of dining the idle, the dissipated, and the refractory. And a more successful or more cunning

Amphyctryon, in his way, never certainly bribed a member of parliament with a bottle.

As a mere proof, no doubt, of the desire of fortune to lavish rewards upon so deserving a writer, Holmes at this time obtained a large prize in the lottery. Government, he thought, did not fully recognize his services. So he went to his patron, Lord Castlereagh, and said that he must have a place, a sinecure, a something for the future. The Minister said there was nothing vacant, or likely to be. "Oh," rejoined Billy, "you may allow an ingenious man like me to make a place for himself." "By all means." Billy Holmes forthwith invinted the place of Trea surer of the Ordnance, in which he installed himself, and on vacating which he had no doubt a good retiring pension.

the

Peace be with Billy Holmes's manes! He was a rare fellow, more rich in political resources than Lyndhurst. He could save a party, when any other whipper-in would have called off the dogs and given up hunt. He knew man and his nature better than, or as well as, Sir Robert Walpole did. And his memoirs, had he, or has he, left any, would be the most instructive and not the least witty of the time.

HOW TO WRITE A PLAY.

NOTHING is more easy
Than to write a play,
In the style to please ye
Of the present day.
Take Scribe or Molière,

And as your own their talents using,
First in pieces tear.

Then take from each the most amusing,

Say in other words what they 've already said,

Thus you 'll write with art, and be with pleasure read.

No event that passes
Can unnoticed drop,
Of a hundred farces,
Each will be the prop.
All will serve for rhymes;

Dread wars commencing or subsiding,
All the victor's crimes,

The virtues of the vanquished hiding.

On the victor's side let all that 's good be said,

Then you'll write with wit, and be with pleasure read.

M. A. B.

RECENT VISIT TO THEBES.*

THE other evening, about 9 o'clock, as my friend and I were taking our customary evening pipe in the cabin, our vessel suddenly stopped. The wind was still blowing, and I called to Achmet to know what was the matter. "We have reached Luxor," answered the Theban. We dropped the chibouks, dashed out, up the bank, and saw, facing us in the brilliant moonlight, the grand colonade of the temple, the solid wedges of the pylon, and the brother obelisk of that which stands in the Place de la Concorde, in Paris. The wide plain of Thebes stretched away on either hand, and the beautiful outlines of the three mountainranges which inclose it, rose in the distance against the stars. We looked on the landscape a few moments, in silence. "Come," said my friend at length, "this is enough for to-night. Let us not be too hasty to exhaust what is in store for us." So we returned to our cabin, closed the blinds, and arranged our plans for best seeing and best enjoying the wonders of the great Diospolis.

Before commencing my recital, let me attempt to give you some idea of the topography of Thebes. The course of the Nile is here nearly north, dividing the site of the ancient city into two almost equal parts. On approaching it for Kenneh, the mountain of Koorneh, which abuts on the river, marks the commencement of the western division. This mountain, a range of naked limestone crags, terminating in a pyramidal peak, gradually recedes to the distance of two miles from the Nile, which it again approaches further south. Nearly the whole of the curve, which might be called the western wall of the city, is pierced with tombs, among which are those of the Queens, and the grand priestly vaults of the Assasseef. The Valley of the Kings' Tombs lies deep in the heart of the range, seven or eight miles from the river. After passing the corner of the mountain, the first ruin on the western bank is that of the temple-palace of Koorneh. More than a mile further, at the base of the mountain, is the Memnoinum, or temple of Remeses the Great, between which and the Nile the two colossi are seated on the plain. Nearly two miles to the south of this is the great temple of Medeenet Abou, and the fragments of other edifices are met with, still further beyond. On the eastern bank, nearly opposite Koorneh, stands the temple of Karnak, about half a mile from the river. Eight miles eastward, at the foot of the Arabian mountains, is the small temple of Medamot, which, however, does not appear to have been included in the limits of Thebes. Luxor is directly on the bank of the Nile, a mile and a half south of Karnak, and the plain extends several miles beyond it, before reaching the isolated range, whose three conical peaks are the landmarks of Thebes to voyagers on the river.

These distances convey an idea of the extent of the ancient city, but cannot give you the grand proportions of the landscape, so well fitted, m. its simple and majestic outlines, to inclose the most wonderful structures the world has ever seen. The green expanse of the plain; the a colouring of the mountains; the mild, solemn blue of the clouds im tian sky; these are a part of Thebes, and inseparable fron. Le M brance of its ruins.

* We are indebted to the New York Weekly Tribune fo narrative.-ED.