for air. After a time he became somewhat calmer. "No need of using it when it is made," he said, "there can be no harm in making it," and rising he went out, locking the door behind him, and leaving the still over the fire. Captain Donovan wavered. Not so the domestic Hargrave. His suspicions had been excited by the captain's proceedings. He possessed himself secretly of the phial containing the laurel water and tried it with effect upon a cat. He then walked quietly up stairs. At the top of the second flight the first door was that of Sir Theodore Broughton's dressing room, and it stood ajar. "That is a piece of luck," said the scoundrel to himself. All was silent, and after waiting a moment or two to listen, he entered the room. Treading on tip-toe he moved across to the fireplace, where stood the bottle of medicine which had been sent that day for Sir Theodore Broughton. He then substituted the one bottle for the other.

On the following morning, Captain Donovan was down early and ordered his horse, saying he would ride out for an hour before breakfast. A minute or two after he heard Sir Theodore's bell ring, and he asked one of the servants if he had seen the young baronet.

"Not yet, sir," replied the man. "I hope he will be better this morning." "I do not think he is well at all,” replied Captain Donovan. "Do you remark how his colour is changed? It would not surprise me at all if he did not recover."

In the meanwhile the under footman had gone up stairs to the young baronet's room, and Captain Donovan walked leisurely towards the stable-yard to mount there. He had got one foot in the stirrup, when the man who had gone out, came running up, exclaiming, "For heaven's sake, stop, sir. Sir Theodore is very ill.”

"What is the matter?" demanded Donovan, pausing instantly,

him?"

"What ails

"I don't know, sir," replied the man, "he's all gasping and heaving and foaming at the mouth."

"An epileptic fit, I suppose," said Captain Donovan, turning towards the house. "You, Thomas, mount the horse, and gallop off for the doctor;" and without further pause he returned, and ran up stairs.

There were two women-servants in the young baronet's room, called by the footman in his first alarm; and they exclaimed, as Donovan entered, "Oh, sir! the stuff Thomas gave him out of the bottle has killed him." Donovan ran hastily to the side of the bed; but there was now nothing but a corpse before him. The eye-lids moved a little, and there was a convulsive movement of the chest ; but the spirit had departed.

"Let me see the bottle," cried Donovan, and taking it from the maid's hand, he instantly recognised the smell of laurel water. A cold, chilly, death-like feeling seized him. All his calmness and firmness forsook him in a moment. How could it have been given to him? Who could have given it? Could he himself have done it in his sleep? A thousand such mad questions suggested themselves to his mind in a moment. Conscious of what he had meditated, terror took possession of him entirely. All presence of mind was lost, he snatched both bottles from the maid who had taken them up again, hurried with them to the basin, tasted the contents of one, and washed them both out with his own hands.

More than enough, with the antecedents in the captain's career, his previous suspicious conduct, and the act of distillation, to hang a man; and if this version had been the correct one, and the intention was there, a sad conclusion to a career of crime, not altogether unmerited.

May.-VOL. LXXXIII. NO. CCCXXIX.

RIFLEMAN HARRIS.*

THERE is a great charm in personal reminiscences connected with war. We freely acknowledge that we never tire of such books; there is always something fresh and interesting in them. The innocence of Rifleman Harris's early life-a simple shepherd on the downs of Blandford-is quite a pastoral introduction to the sanguinary scenes in which his after-life was spent. The eventful portion of the rifleman's career, commences with the advance of the army from Mondego Bay to Vimiero. The rifles in the front in advance, and in rear in the retreat, see more than those who are attached to the body of the army. The soldiers appear to have been borne down at the onset by the weight they had to carry. They came up with the enemy fatigued and exhausted at Roliça. As to Harris's part in the engagement that ensued, he says, he threw himself down behind a small bank, where he lay so secure that although the Frenchman's bullets fell pretty thickly around, he was enabled to knock several over without being dislodged; in fact, he fired away every round he had in his pouch whilst lying at that spot.

Joseph Cochan was by my side loading and firing very industriously about this period of the day. Thirsting with heat and action, he lifted his canteen to his mouth; "here's to you, old boy," he said, as he took a pull at its contents. As he did so a bullet went through the canteen, and perforating his brain, killed him in a moment.

There is an affecting episode connected with this Cochan, who left behind him an affectionate well-behaved widow, whom Harris would willingly have married, but she said she had received too great a shock on the occasion of her husband's death ever to think of another soldier. One of the first men hit at Vimiero was a corporal of the rifles, who had a presentiment of his death, a circumstance which our author says he has observed once or twice happen with the bravest men.

The first cannon-shot I saw fired I remember was a miss. The artilleryman made a sad bungle, and the ball went wide of the mark. We were all looking anxiously to see the effect of this shot; and another of the gunners (a redhaired man) rushed at the fellow who had fired, and, in the excitement of the moment, knocked him head over heels with his fist. "D- you for a fool,” he said, "what sort of a shot do you call that? Let me take the gun." He accordingly fired the next shot himself as soon as the gun was loaded, and so truly did he point it at the French column on the hill side, that we saw the fatal effect of the destructive missile, by the lane it made and the confusion it caused. Our riflemen (who at the moment were amongst the guns), upon seeing this, set up a tremendous shout of delight, and the battle commencing immediately, we were all soon hard at work.

These extracts will suffice to give some idea of Harris's personal recollections. On reading Grant's "Highlanders," we left off quite convinced that those kilted heroes decided by their bravery every Peninsular conflict in which they were engaged; so we are now, in like manner, convinced that the old ninety-fifth were the men that did it, and that Rifleman Harris was the greatest of all the Peninsular heroes. The conclusion, however, as is mostly the case with a soldier's life, is lugubrious. We sincerely hope that this publication may be of use to a brave old Englishman.

* Recollections of Rifleman Harris (old 95th), with Anecdotes of his Officers and his Comrades. Edited by Henry Curling, Esq. One vol. H. Hurst.

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PHILIP AND HIS POODLE.

I would have as one should say, one that takes upon him to be a dog indeed to be, as it were, a dog at all things.-Two Gentlemen of Verona.

CHAPTER I.

WHEN old Delpini, the clown, unable to obtain payment of his salary from Sheridan, applied some very uncourteous terms to him, the latter indignantly exclaimed, "Sir, you forget yourself; you do not know the difference between us.'

"Oh, yes, I do," was the reply. "In birth, parentage, and education you are superior to me. In life, character, and behaviour I am superior to you."

Not less striking was the contrast between the different destinations of "The Finish" tavern in Soho, which having been reared in all the respectability of red brick and stone mouldings, in the Duke of Monmouth's days, and generally occupied by artists and other decent people, had now become a haunt to which an inferior class of revellers resorted after the places of public entertainment were closed, for the purpose of winding up the night, an object generally effected in a manner by no means flattering to their "life, character, and behaviour."

Hey, presto, pass! We are in a small room of this tenement, the panelled walls of which are hung with engravings of celebrated racers, of the almost forgotten boxing-match between Cribb and Black Molyneux, and of opera dancers in such variety of indecorous costume and attitude that the very tobacco smoke seemed to be ashamed, and did its best to throw a veil over them. Beside a small table supporting rummers, a cigar case, and a fuming can which emitted a strong odour of aniseed, forming an unsavoury combination with that of the tobacco, sat two figures, one dressed as a clown in a pantomime, with a fool's cap and bells, the other wearing the garb of a Cordelier monk, with a cowl drawn closely round his head. Spite of the white and red patches with which the face of the former was smeared, an observer would have surmised from the form and expression of his features that he was sensual, good-natured, and not very strong-minded, while from the dark and sinister look of his companion, and his narrow compressed lips, it would have been difficult to resist the conviction that he was covetous, crafty, and selfish. A conjunction so strange, in a locality so incongruous, might well have puzzled a spectator until he listened to their conversation, when the mystery would have been quickly solved.

"Come, Peter Crawley," said the clown, emitting a whiff of smoke, "it's your turn now, I spoke last. You're not acting the monk now, you blinking owl! Needn't be stupid here: bad enough at the masquerade, never saw a worse. No larking, no rollicking, nothing spicy. How

June.-VOL. LXXXIII. NO. cccxxx.

M