attests on my face. So putting my hat on
my head with a careless defying air, and
assuming my portmanteau and hatbox, purveyed
for the expedition with Mr. Stratford, I shut
the street door on them Gorgons;—and breathing
the bloomy air of eve, while waiting for
the omnibus. "Timothy," said I, "this is Lord
Byron anew constricted. You are free." The
lodgings was up that very night, for Posterity
forbid, dear sir, that I should have left those
ill-conditioned beings in a pennyworth of debt.
Weaker vessels, when under dejectstion, commit
strange frekes. It was them, I hold good, as
severed every natural tye; but indeed, sir,
though I say it who should not say it, I could
not moan the severince. And I was free; at
the rate of eighteen shillings a week: and they
was off, and easy to their own pursuits;—and I
was eager for mine, to which I had been for
some time rising approximations.

Opera has been from boyhood's guileless
prime my halo. In the fond epoch of youth,
I have basked in the pit of Italy, by favour of
a ballad-master and cleaned gloves. If eligant
wearables was availed of from a noble wardrobe,
to appear in the due regimen of decoration,
my Lord was not sensitive of it. But
could I have tuned my voice to sing, would I
have done such, among them foreigners? Sir,
never. English sentimonts has always been my
criterion—so allured me to a tract of fascinatious
effort. And with a spelling dictonary
and a riming dictonary, and a ear for ballads
and organs, such as is rewarded to a pausity,
I felt strong enough to lanch a new bark, on
waters which, mind, and poetry, and loveliness,
and supernel music sweetly pervaded. Nor
was I without a vehicle of connexion with the
entrancing arena of my hopes.

Mr. Berrington, sir, is a writer of musical term
whom I had casually witnessed while respectually
frequenting a Shades, where persons could meet
partys of reciprocate enthusiasm for art. In these
golden Stratford days ("Are you indeed for ever
past?") I had partook with Mr. Berrington as
a kindred spirit, and he had said to me, "Mr.
Theodore, why should not you and me corroborate?
You have Fancy's flow, I have Music's
spell. Let us make an opera together, and them
publishers shall buy it, played or not played."
For Mr. Berrington he welded the pen of the
Press or pressure besides eliciting music.

And so, during the boistering Era of later domestic
days, I had devoted the midnight lamp over
a pensive tale to draw loving tears from every
delighter in ballads and the beauties of the stage;
—and so, after having established myself in a
lodging (what matter where the lowly roof), I
breathed in a predicoment of relief from them
two women, and, I must add, from that boy who
had never done screaching since he commenced
his vale of tears. I sought out Mr. Berrington,
then residuary at Camden Town, and, ''Sir,"
I said to him, "here is a domestical opera, if
ever was such a ticket, and ballads to which
them as gives out texts for Florrybell to set is
but child's play." "Mr. Theodore," says Mr.
Berrington, fingering his piano on the keys, "I
am beseeched with proposials from every point
of the compass. Here" (and he pointed the
other hand to a role as might have come cold
from every one's dripping-pan, so greasy was it)
"is a grand opera-book by Boley (you know
Boley's burlesques) on a harrowing subject—
'Jesy Campbell, or the Well of Cawnpore.' But
the massacree ain't developed. I am obliged
to send it back to him; and, besides, ballads
is all the go now. Polly's Parrot, in spite of
its Royalty" (what this was, gracious only
knew), "has made its publishers one thousand
pounds. I've a notion of a opera with a Bird
in it ever since I see Mrs. Sims Reeves make
such a good business over a wicker cage hung
among the twining wouldbine."

"Mr. Berrington," says I (thriling—for who
would not have kindled as knew what Bird in
the bush was mine?), "you enhance me beyond
extraction! Sir, I am proud I can satisfy
you. Ever since I see the Ashley piece with
camels and that practical orstrich as flapped its
wings on hiding its head in the sand to warn
the two lovers prosecuted by the Nubian Tyrant,
which had but a limited success—the idea of
the domestic fowl of our native home has rose
on the sphere of fancy. Cocrobin was the first
theme as suggested, only he was worn threadbreast
in Pantomimes, till every one's sick of
them Babes in the Wood. As to swans, real
water is their unfailing perquisite, which Opera
cannot always control;—save at the Wels, which
is low. There, sir, swans on the brink, even
during when a thrilling the last lay, immortalised
by verse, cuts but a melancholy awkard
appearance. So," says I, protruding the
manuscript of my soul, "my opera is called 'The
White Fowl of the Village, or Bliss in the
Cot.' The scene lays in Dorsetshire, but first
dram. charicters which, so be, is these——"
And I sate down prepared to elocute my book,
the child of such hours of Care's hope.

"Stop, Mr. Theodore," says Mr. Berrington,
"don't untie them strings. Things gets lost if
they are not kept tight together; and to-night
I am distracted, as I have no leisure to enjoy
your delightful task—for delightful I ween it
is. I was putting on my hat as you came in,
to go and rehearse my new ballad, The Elderberry
Blossom, with Miss Kewney. She is
down for it at Sevenokes to-morrow, and at
Basingstock the day after, and on Monday at
Forfar, and a precious lot of places besides;—so
I cannot concentrate, as would be my wish
when you are the category. Leave the book
with me; and call—let me see"—and Mr.
Berrington tapped his forehead as if he was counting
a sum—call, we'll say, this day fortnight."

"Sir," says I, "the integinum of our mutual
meeting will be a protractious eternity till the
dear moment comes to pass; but you know
best." And I left the abode of music's spell
less brightly than I had repaired to it.

Suspense, sir, is as wearing as stones beyond
the axtion of water. I could neither fix nor
settle them fourteen long days and sleepless