were obliged to cut off his Majesty's hair with a knife for want of scissors, and there we undressed him, and he gave one of his servants the chain of gold or spannar-string, which had been presented to him by a Scottish lord.. 'Sblood! Jocelyn, Harry Wilmot had a narrow escape when he crept into the hot kiln at Mrs. Lane's malt-house, while the soldiers were searching the premises, and was halfbaked when they took him out again.* But poor Harry Wilmot's dead now! Wilmot 's dead now, and little Jack has become my Lord Rochester,

*The tract in the British Museum, to which reference has already been made, and whence some of the foregoing particulars have been extracted, states that Mrs. Lane's share in his Majesty's escape having by some means transpired, a party of soldiers were sent to apprehend her, and finding she had fled, burnt the premises to the ground. The lady succeeded in reaching France, of which she apprised Charles, who was then in Paris. After relating that the King immediately sent one of his own carriages for her, and went out to meet her, the author gives the following trait, which (if true) is not less honourable to his Majesty's sense of gratitude, than to the humble individual who was the object of it.-"The Queen, his mother, the Dukes of York and Glocester, went out also to meet this preserver of their son, sovereign, and brother. The coaches meeting, and she being descended from her coach, his Majesty likewise descends, and taking her by the hand, salutes her with this grateful expression-Welcome, my life!' and so, putting her into his own coach, conducts her to Paris, where she was entertained with the applause and wonder of the whole court."

and the King's crony.-A wild rogue they tell me, and a wicked, but I warrant me none the less liked by merry Rowland.”

"He must be more wicked even than report makes him," said Jocelyn, "if he would refuse a service to his father's oldest friend. I will demand his good offices in your behalf, and if all else fail, I am determined to make an appeal to the monarch himself, and request not only the restitution of your estate, but some employment for myself. Your exertions and sufferings surely entitle you to advance this claim."

"Body o' me, Jocelyn! if a just claim were a sure card, we should speed with the best, and the kitchen-fire of Brambletye would blaze as it used to do. 'Slife! didn't I refuse to put up the crosses and harp, and retain the three lions at the back of my grate, ay, and well-polished too, till I was routed out by Noll's Ironsides? and yet after all, I am to be ejected from my own house, as if I were as big a Roundhead as Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, who have been dug up, and bundled out of their coffins. Surely the King must have been bamboozled about me, or never have received my letters. But kissing goes by favour at court; so you shall go up to Whitehall, and try your luck with a letter to Jack Wilmot: if he refuses to assist you, you shall have another for the King; and if Rowland fobs you off-'Sblood! I'll hobble up myself to the foot of his throne, and shake this

oaken staff in his face, and remind him that it was cut from the very tree into which I helped him to climb for his life, and into which I afterwards threw up a pillow that he might lay his head in Don Carlos's lap, and get a little sleep."

Jocelyn was by no means sorry to accept this commission, for it was not only painful to him to witness the grovelling situation in which his father was placed by his unfortunate marriage, but he had already received several very intelligible hints from his sordid step-mother, which rendered him anxious to quit her presence with as little delay as possible. Certain that he would become, however unintentionally, a spy upon her actions, and apprehensive that he would endeavour to intercept the supplies, or withdraw Sir John altogether from her grasp, she had always opposed his coming over to England, and now sought to drive him from his father's house by rendering it as uncomfortable to him as possible. This had been one reason of the sorry cheer she had provided upon his arrival; this had been the incessant motive of her subsequent demeanour, and Jocelyn was not of a temper to require being twice told by any one that his presence was unwelcome. Upon the following morning, accordingly, he demanded the letter of introduction to Lord Rochester, together with one for the King, which he pledged himself to deliver into his Majesty's own hands, and immediately took his departure for London.

At about two o'clock on the day after his arrival, he presented himself at his lordship's house, near the Bowling Alley, in Westminster. He was not yet risen, but as his servants expected every moment to hear his bell, he was invited to sit down in the ante-room. In this apartment, he found a considerable company assembled, by whose conversation he discovered, that the major portion consisted of calling-again duns waiting by appointment, and all in high expectation of touching their money, or receiving a payment on account, for which purpose some of them had already been several hours in attendance. Among them, however, were others of a different character; tradesmen, who, considering inordinate profits a compensation for protracted payment, were come to tempt him with specimens of jewellery, plate, sword-handles and belts, rich ornaments, stuffs, hangings, and every description of costly gew-gaw. In an arm-chair a teacher of the guitar had fallen fast asleep, with his instrument in his hand; at his side, a French dancing-master was relieving the time by rehearsing the Bransles, a Parisian dance, in which he was to give instructions to his lordship; in one corner stood a thread-bare poet, reading over to himself, with prodigious interest, a copy of encomiastic verses, for which he expected some trifling honorarium; and in another was an artist, who, for the consideration of forty shillings, initiated his pupils in the mystery of folding napkins in eighteen different forms for the dinner-ta

ble, an accomplishment with which his Lordship had been so much struck, that he had determined to become his scholar in his own person, though it would seem to have been better adapted to some of his numerous servants. While Jocelyn was gazing upon this motley assemblage, the door again opened, and in strutted his quondam acquaintance of the Gate-house, Pickering the actor, now gallantly dressed in fine and flaunting clothes, seeming to snuff up the very air with a disdainful nose, and carrying himself with a more magnificent swagger than ever. Our hero, who perceived that he was not immediately recognised, had no sooner made himself known, than he started back into a theatrical attitude, exclaiming, "Art thou, indeed, the Jocelynian youth?" embraced him, with open arms, and then proceeded to inform him, in his usual bombastic style, that he was in high repute at one of the royal theatres, and came here by appointment for the prologue to the Tragedy of Valentinian, which his lordship had been altering from Fletcher, and which was to be produced in a few days.

While they were conversing, the servant who had taken up Jocelyn's letter came to him with a request, that he would withdraw into his lordship's breakfast-closet, where he would join him in a few minutes. Willingly obeying this mandate, he was ushered into a small apartment, which he had full leisure to examine, before his solitude was interrupted. Its wooden pannels, divided into carved