"But

or gossip that is imparted to her.* There is Mrs. Gore's Penelope Smith,
"the only person who ventured to assert that she had always seen in Ber-
nard Forbes the making of the greatest man in England."† Again, there
is that self-absorbed piece of feminine frivolity in Mrs. Stowe's novel-for
we are making place aux dames-Marie St. Clare, who will not hear of
her child Eva being in the least degree ailing till it is too late.
now that Eva was fairly and visibly prostrated, and a doctor called, Marie
all on a sudden took a new turn.-She knew it, she said, she always felt
it; that she was destined to be the most miserable of mothers. Here she
was with her wretched health, and her only darling child going down to
the grave before her eyes."‡ It is of herself, as ever, that Marie is
thinking; not of her darling child. Inconsistent in everything else, she
is uniformly consistent in entire self-absorption. Just before Eva draws
her last breath, as father and mother stand beside her death-bed, "It's
just what I've been foreboding," said Marie; "it's just what has been
preying on my health from day to day, bringing me downward to the
grave, though nobody regards it. I have seen this long. St. Clare, you
will see, after a while, that I was right." "Which will afford you great
consolation, no doubt," said St. Clare, in a dry, bitter tone. §-The Mrs.
Glegg of "George Eliot," again, is a pronounced type of the species.
When her sister Bessy, Mrs. Tulliver, of the Mill on the Floss, is
forming plans, which Aunt Glegg approves not, for the advancement of
her children, Aunt Glegg blames Bessy for her weakness, and appeals to
all witnesses who shall be living when the Tulliver children have turned
out ill, that she, Mrs. Glegg, has always said how it would be from the
very first, observing that it is wonderful to herself how all her words come
true. || When ruin and sickness overtake the Miller, Mrs. Tulliver sends
for her sisters, and there is much wailing and lifting up of hands below
stairs : "both uncles and aunts saw that the ruin of Bessy and her family
was as complete as they had ever foreboded it." At a later stage of the
household decay, Maggie Tulliver is roused to hurl defiance at uncles and
aunts, hugely to their dismay. But, "It's no more than what I've allays
said," maunders on Aunt Glegg. "Other folks may be surprised, but
I'm not. I've said over and over again-years ago I've said- Mark my
words; that child 'ull come to no good: there isn't a bit of our family in
her.'"** Pre-eminent among our family, for sagacious foresight and ac-
curate prediction, being Aunt Glegg herself. And, as inimitable Birdo-
fredum Sawin sings and says,

It takes a mind like Dannel's, fact, ez big ez all ou' doors,
To find out that it looks like rain arter it fairly pours.

As for Mr. Dickens, almost every work of his would supply illustrations to the purpose. In the Pickwick Papers we have Mrs. Nupkins, who had gloried in that wheedling adventurer, the self-styled Captain Fitz-Marshall, of whom she could not make too much, -facing about, on the exposure ure of that impostor, and reproaching her husband for ever taking up with so evident a blackleg. "Ah! you may thank your papa, my dear," Mrs. Nupkins assures the distressed daughter; "how have I implored and begged that man to inquire into the Captain's family and connexions; how have I urged and entreated him to take some decisive step!" Poor Mr. Nupkins mildly interjects the reminder that his wife had always paid great attention to the now exploded captain-had constantly asked him to the house, and lost no opportunity of introducing him elsewhere. Whereupon, "Didn't I say so, Henrietta?" cries Mrs. Nupkins, appealing to her daughter with the air of a deeply-injured wife: "didn't I say that your papa would turn round and lay all this at my door? Didn't I say so?"* And sobs give emphasis to the query.

"She

Or take Mrs. Varden, on the occasion of the match-making between Dolly Varden and Joe Willett, when it appeared that from Mrs. Varden's penetration and extreme sagacity nothing had ever been hidden. had known it all along. She had seen it from the first. She had always predicted it. She had been aware of it before the principals." And she had, by her own account, observed no end of little circumstances (all of which she named) so exceedingly minute that no one else could make anything out of them even now; and had, it seemed, from first to last, displayed the most unbounded tact and most consummate generalship.†

So with Mrs. Nickleby. When intelligence arrived of Madame Mantalini's failure in business, &c., "that good lady declared that she had expected it all along, and cited divers unknown occasions when she had prophesied to that precise effect."‡ In point of fact, what Mrs. Nickleby had all along prophesied was, that her daughter Kate would anon be taken into partnership by the flourishing milliner; and her only doubt as to its future was whether the dressmaking firm would ultimately become Mantalini, Knag, and Nickleby; or, Mantalini, Nickleby, and Knag. -In the same storys it is that a shrewd stage performer observes of certain cautious demi-semi-patrons, that, if you succeed, they give people to understand that they had always patronised you; and that if you fail, they will have been quite certain of that from the very beginning.

A characteristic touch of Betsey Prig's is that where, to other rough usage of a wretched, feeble patient, she adds the torture of rasping his unhappy head with a hard brush, and observes, as she stops to look at him-his very eyelids red with the friction-" I suppose you don't like that neither!" His aspect amply justifies the surmise. "Mrs. Prig was gratified to observe the correctness of her supposition, and said triumphantly, 'she know'd as much." "||

Once more; there is that precious piece of profundity and pomp, Mr. Pumblechook, who, on the discovery of Pip's great expectations, makes known to that lad for the first time in his life, and certainly after having kept his secret wonderfully well, that he (Pumblechook) had always said of him (Pip), "That boy is no common boy, and, mark me, his fortun' will be no common fortun'."

Mr. Charles Reade gives us a specimen of the quality in Merton,

when George Fielding is crossed in love. "Merton was one of those friends one may make sure of finding in adversity. There,' cried he, 'George, I told you how it would end.' '"* And the clodhoppers at the village "public" drone to the same tone; a century nearly of voices echoing some such conversational Tristich as this :

1st Rustic. I tawld un as much, dinn't I now, Jarge?
2nd Rustic. That ye did, Richard, for I heerd ee.
1st Rustic. But, la! bless ye, he don't vally advice, he don't.†

It is Mr. Thackeray's "daresay," that when Pharaoh's kind daughter found the child, and cherished and loved it, and took it home, and found a nurse for it, too, there were grim, brickdust-coloured chamberlains, or some of the tough, old, meagre, yellow princesses at court, who never had children themselves, who cried out, "Faugh! the horrid little squalling wretch!" and knew he would never come to good; and said, "Didn't I tell you so ?" when he assaulted the Egyptian.‡ Readers will not have forgotten the same author's Mrs. Mackenzie in "The Newcomes," and the execrable garrulity with which that unbearable motherin-law scolds everybody right and left, when the fine old colonel's fortune is lost, and protests her unvarying mistrust of the connexion, she had left no stone unturned to bring about.

Byron makes even Remorse a persecutor whose prophecies and warnings are apt to come after the event:

That juggling fiend-who never spoke before

But cries, "I warned thee!" when the deed is o'er.§

A somewhat parallel passage occurs in Mr. Robert Browning's picturesque expansion of the text of Edgar's song in Lear, "Childe Roland to the dark tower came:"

543

DUDLEY COSTELLO.

LITERATURE has lost a distinguished member, and society a brilliant ornament, in the recent death of Dudley Costello.

He was born in Sussex at a time when a French invasion was imminent. His father, afterwards Colonel Costello, of the 14th Foot, had a command near Winchester at the period, and the infant was often brought over to the camp to be seen and admired as a remarkably fine, intelligent child. "That fellow never cries!" was his proud father's exclamation, so sweet was his temper and so cheerful his aspect from his earliest days. In this, as in many characteristics, Dudley resembled his mother, a woman of great mind, self-denying, noble, generous, and full of wit and gaiety. "What can you two find to laugh at?" asked a bachelor friend once of the pair, when travelling with them. "You kept me awake all night, only a partition being between us, with your gaiety."

Dudley inherited the bright character of both his parents their wit and their spirit-all who knew him can vouch for that fact! His friendship and readiness to assist his companions in literature and art, of which he was a judicious and passionate admirer, are extensively known. The notices he from time to time gave of art, both in this Magazine, the New Monthly, and in other publications, were fully appreciated by those who knew the value of real criticism, and every artist was pleased to find that his pen was employed to set forth the merits of a good work. In all departments of art this was the case, and at the first great Exhibition he was solicited to bring before the public, in his own peculiar manner, the merits of numerous works, which might have suffered in the hands of one less capable of judging with his delicacy and discrimination. An artist himself, his beautiful pen-and-ink sketches attracted the notice of Baron Cuvier in Paris, and he prevailed on Mr. Costello to fill the place of one of the great naturalist's assistants lately lost. Many of the drawings in the "Règne Animale" are from his pencil, and none are so faithful or so exquisitely touched as those he executed.

Educated at the Military College, Sandhurst, he got his first commission in the 24th, and awaited the return of that regiment from India. After an interval of half-pay, which he passed in sketching and writing his first tales, he entered the 96th, and was sent to Canada and Bermuda. Many officers there with him recollect his charming character and the delight of his society. "At Bermuda," says the Examiner, in a memoir of our lamented friend, evidently written by one who well knew and loved him, "Dudley Costello was in high favour among his comrades for his wit, and the good humour with which he strove to relieve the monotony of the Summer Islands. He gave up all his leisure at that time to drawing and literature, sketching in pen and ink, in a masterly style, all the grots and caves and peculiar scenery of the islands, and writing an account of them from their earliest discovery. In particular, he made a drawing of Moore's calabash-tree, an object of pilgrimage to admirers of the poet, whose 'Last eve in the shade of a calabash-tree,' made it one of the show-objects of Bermuda. In after years he had a fruit of the same tree set as a drinking-cup, and (together with the pen-and-ink sketch) presented it to the poet at Sloperton. Moore wrote to tell him that 'no present he ever received gave him such pleasure. Bessie,' he added, does nothing but drive about, carrying it with her, and exhibiting it to all her friends.'

"While in Bermuda, the society of which he was the chief favourite looked regularly every fortnight for a newspaper 'edited' by him. He took the trouble to write it in a hand like printing, in order that it might be easily read, and there was mirth at the breakfast-tables of his friends whenever the Grouper, as he called his paper, appeared. The staff of young officers whom he had appointed to assist were sometimes idle and indifferent, and he filled up the whole paper himself, writing in different styles-anything for an amusing joke that hit some topic of their daily conversation. For several years this amateur journalism continued to delight the world of Bermuda, the soldier-editor being at the time scarcely twenty!"

Young Captain Canning, R.N., the son of the great minister-a connexion of his own by marriage-was his favourite companion, and the last time they ever met, Dudley lent his watch to his friend, who had mislaid his own, in order that he might be ready to sail at an early hour. An appointment was made for them to meet, when the watch was to be restored. Canning sailed in haste, and the friends never met again. The hope of Canning's family was drowned while bathing, and Dudley Costello had already reached England.

He rejoined his family soon after in Paris, and from that time gave himself up to literary pursuits. His tastes and those of his accomplished sister, Miss Louisa Stuart Costello, being in all things the same, the two henceforth assisted each other, and, both in painting and in composition, they went generally hand in hand. He was fond of active sports, and considered an admirable leaper, astonishing the young Frenchmen, his acquaintances, with his powers of running and leaping, and enjoying their surprise at feats which he himself looked upon as trifles. That he saw things from a comic point of view, and that nothing escaped his observation which was likely to tell in narrative, he has shown for many years in this Magazine, which he has enlivened with his clever and brilliant sketches of French life, as well as lightly touching on peculiarities of English manners and habits; but nothing ill-natured or severe ever fell from his pen or was conceived in his heart. He possessed untiring patience, was extremely persevering and diligent, and the order in which he arranged all that he wrote was very remarkable. "Having now quitted the army," says the Examiner, "Costello thought nothing so easy as a new pursuit, sure to succeed. Moore gave him letters to a publisher in Paris for his Bermuda sketches and accompanying narrative. Nothing came of this, so far as concerned the pictures themselves, but the talent shown in them had not been spent in vain. For while in Paris, Costello was introduced to Baron Cuvier, who, delighted with his sketches in pen and ink, proposed to him to replace a lost assistant who drew for his work on comparative anatomy. He passed some months, therefore, in the private cabinet of Cuvier, drawing from preserved specimens of fishes, since published in the work. So exquisitely delicate in execution, were his sketches that even those which failed to satisfy the naturalist because of the omission of a scale or a fin, were shown as wonders of neat-handed skill. After a time he devoted himself to copying illuminated MSS. in the Bibliothèque Royale, where he made friends