alarmed Springthorpe, who knew the man, and as he stepped back among his friends, the earl ran again into the house, bolted all the doors, and apparently prepared for a desperate resistance. The angry crowd blockaded his house, but no one appeared. About two hours after, however, the earl thrust his wild face out of a garret window, and called out, "How is Johnson ?" Springthorpe shouted up the terrible words, "He is dead." The earl replied, “You're a liar, d- you. I'll believe nobody but Kirkland.” tion in which he had held it, and expressed surprise that the bullet should have lodged at all, as only a few days before a ball from the same pistol had gone through an inch-and-a-half plank. The surgeon then went down-stairs to prepare dressings, and the earl went back again to his beer jug. As he got more and more drunk, fits of compassion alternated with storms of rage and pangs of fear, till his reason seemed almost tottering. He lamented his rage, then trembled for himself, and the next moment was rushing up-stairs to Johnson's room to rouse the dying man, On being solemnly assured that the to pull his legs, to try to tear off the bed-steward was dead, the earl at last desired the clothes, and to threaten to shoot "the people to disperse, and he would surrender. villain" through the head, all the while at The next moment, with all a madman's deintervals promising to maintain Johnson's sultoriness, he asked some one to bring him daughter and the whole family if they would some meat and wine. Then cursing every promise not to prosecute. Mrs. Clifford, one in a sudden rage, he said he would not who had returned, alarmed at the earl's be taken at all, and, slamming the window, violence, and afraid of further ill conse- disappeared. quences, suggested that poor Johnson should be removed to his own house, but that set Lord Ferrers again raging, and he screamed: "He shall not be moved. will keep him here to plague the villain!" Between eleven and twelve the murderer went gloomily to bed, entreating the surgeon to make things all right, and, above all, to prevent his being seized, especially leaving word to see him in the morning, however early he left. In the night the doctor began to foresce new dangers with the next daylight. In fresh ravings the earl might shoot Johnson as he lay in bed, or, what was even worse (from his the doctor's point of view), he might, if the steward died at the hall, shoot him (the doctor) for having let the man die. So, in the darkness, Kirkland stole off to the steward's house, and rigged up an easychair, with side poles, as a sedan. About two o'clock in the morning Johnson was quietly removed. The poor fellow lingered till nine in the morning, and then expired. The news of the crime and its results aroused the neighbours, who armed themselves and bore down on the hall. As they crowded murmuring into the court-yard, the earl, half dressed, his stockings down, and carrying his garters in his hand, passed towards the stable as if to take horse and fly, the news of the steward's death having no doubt already reached him. A bold Leicestershire man, named Springthorpe, at once pushed to the front, and presenting a pistol, summoned the madman to surrender. The earl, however, putting his hand in his pocket as if to pull out a pistol, Two hours later the earl was seen strutting about his bowling-green, probably quite drunk by this time, and armed with Ia huge bell-mouthed blunderbuss, two or three pistols, and a dagger. They closed in upon him, however, and Austin, a collier, resolutely ran in at him and seized him, without even a shot being fired, or any scuffle taking place. The moment his hands were tied he began to glory in the fact of having, as he said, killed a villain. He was taken to Ashby-de-la-Zouch and locked up in a public-house till the coroner's jury brought in a verdict of "wilful murder," when the earl was driven off to Leicester Jail. A fortnight later Lord Ferrers was taken to London in his own landau, dressed like a jockey, in a close riding-frock, jockey boots, cap, and a plush shirt. The House of Peers committed the murderer to the Tower. He was placed in a round building near the drawbridge, and strictly guarded. Two warders constantly attended in his room: a third waited at the door. At the bottom of the stairs, two soldiers stood with fixed bayonets, and one sentinel paced at the door of the tower. The great gates were shut an hour before the usual time while this miserable criminal remained a prisoner. Mrs. Clifford and her children came up to town and lodged in Tower-street, but the interchanged messages became at last so troublesome to the warders that they had to be restricted to one letter a day. His children were occasionally allowed to see him. The earl lived regularly, and drank his quart of wine a day. His behaviour in general was rea sonable, but at times, when denouncing the murdered steward, his passion broke all bounds. The trial of Lord Ferrers took place at Westminster Hall on the 16th of April, 1760, Lord Henley (afterwards Earl of Northington), the Chancellor, presiding as high steward over the one hundred and forty peers present. The criminal, "bad and villanous in figure," as Horace Walpole says, pleaded insanity, against his own inclination, to please his family. The earl's two brothers attended to prove lunacy in the blood. The plea of madness not holding, the worthless earl was found guilty by the unanimous voice of his peers, and was sentenced to be duly hung, like any low-bred cut-throat, and afterwards to be anatomised, on the 21st of April. He was afterwards respited till the 5th of May. While awaiting his sentence, Lord Ferrers did the little he could to atone for his crime by leaving thirteen hundred pounds in India bonds to the children of Mr. Johnson: a just legacy, that nevertheless remained long unpaid. He also left sixty pounds a year to Mrs. Clifford, and one thousand pounds to cach of his natural daughters. He petitioned very hard to be beheaded in private on Tower Green; but with this request King George very properly refused to comply. His legacies were, however, permitted to be held as legal. In prison the earl now drank as much as he could get, and continued to act in a way that bordered as nearly as possible on madness. The very night that sentence was passed, he played at piquet, for money, with the warders, and would have remained all night over the cards had they not refused to play after midnight. On the governor lessening his rather excessive allowance of wine, the earl artfully consented to an interview with one of his brothers, his only object being to get his brother to intercede for more claret. The moment this request was granted, the earl said coolly to his brother: "Now is as good a time as any to take leave of youadieu !" So the door closed upon the brother for ever, and the mad earl shuffled the cards, eat for a new deal, and went gaily on with his piquet. The earl's aunt, that excellent woman the Countess of Huntingdon, the great patroness of Whitfield, frequently visited the prisoner in the Tower, but nothing could restore his mind to a rational balance, or soften his bull-dog heart. He told the chaplain frankly that he was a deist, and could not believe in justification by faith. He boasted that he had never led the faith of any one astray. He thought all persons who assailed the religion of a country enemies of society, and he blamed Lord Bolingbroke for disseminating sceptical theories. As for Johnson, he said the affair was under peculiar circumstances, and he had met with so many crosses and vexations that he scarcely knew what he did, but he was graciously pleased to say that he bore no malice against the unfortunate man. The chaplain finally hinted something about the world requiring satisfaction. "Sir," replied the earl, with allowable impatience, and more good sense than usual, "sir, what have I to do now with the world? I am going to pay a forfeit life. What do I care what the world thinks of me?" The morning of the execution he began the following lines, when the warders, coming to tell him his carriage was ready, interrupted the composition: In doubt I live, in doubt I die, Yet undismayed the vast abyss I'll try ; The next earl who is hung may perhaps carry on the poem. About nine A.M. the procession left the Tower-gate. First came a body of constables to clear a passage through the dense crowd, patrols of horse and foot guards followed; then came the sheriff's carriage, the horses decorated with ribbons. Last of all came Lord Ferrers in his own landau, drawn by six horses, his old coachman crying all the way, and almost unable to drive. The earl was dressed in his wedding suit of white silk, richly embroidered with silver-a costume, as he said bitterly, "as fit for one day as the other." When he saw the vast crowd jostling all the way up Holborn and the Oxford-road, he remarked calmly: "Ah! I suppose they never saw a lord hanged before." At the Tower-gate Mr. Sheriff Vaillant, a French bookseller, with many apologies, took his seat in the landau. "It was very disagreeable to him," he said, with perfect good manners, "to wait on his lordship on so awful an occasion, but he would endeavour to render his situation as agreeable as possible." Earl Ferrers asked the polite sheriff if he had ever seen such a crowd before. The sheriff had not. The mob was so great that it took the landau three hours to reach the Tyburn fields. At St. Giles's the earl wanted to stop and have a draught of wine-and-water, but the sheriff suggested that the halt would only draw together an unmanageable crowd, and Lord Ferrers replied: "That is true. I say no more. By no means stop." He then remarked that the antecedents of death were more terrible than death itself. There was a scaffold covered with black baize under the scaffold in honour of the criminal, and the place where the earl was to stand to die was eighteen inches higher than the rest. At the gallows he expressed a wish to bid Mrs. Clifford farewell, but the sheriff, suggesting it might unman him, the earl replied: "If you, sir, think I am wrong, I submit." one He then gave the sheriff a pocket-book containing a bank-note, and a ring, and a purse of guineas for Mrs. Clifford. A troop of horse quite unnecessarily formed a circle round the man, whom not person in the crowd had the slightest desire to rescue. The criminal ascended the black steps calm and collected, and joined the chaplain in repeating the Lord's Prayer, which he stopped to pronounce a fine composition, and he uttered the words, "O Lord forgive me all my errors, pardon all my sins," with great fervour. He then presented his watch to the sheriff, and, by mistake, gave five guineas (for your hanging was then an expensive luxury) to the assistant - executioner, which led to an unseemly wrangling between the two learned legal functionaries, which must have almost upset the earl's temper for the last time at the unbearable delay of business. Lord Ferrers was the first sufferer by the new drop, just then introduced in place of the barbarous cart, ladder, and medieval three-cornered gibbet, such as Hogarth has shown us in the last scene of the Idle Apprentice. The earl's neckcloth being removed, and a white cap drawn from his pocket and put on, his arms were bound with a black sash, and the halter slipped round his bull neck. During the hour and a half that the earl's body hung, the sheriff and some friends quietly partook of a cosey little lunch. The body was then placed in a coffin lined with quilted white satin, and conveyed to Surgeon's Hall to be dissected. The surgeons universally declared that they had never seen greater promise of long life in anybody that had come under their notice. The earl, in his laced white silk coat, was placed upright in his coffin as in a sentry-box, and remained for some time, under care of a sentinel, under the inspection of a curious crowd. His lordship's cocked-hat and the severed rope were laid at his feet. On the lid of the coffin the cager crowds read these words: "Laurence Earl Ferrers, suffered May 5th, 1760." LOVE'S DANGER. The sweet soft subtle cadence of a word, Ye'loved ones! know your sceptre's boundless sway; Ah, mighty arbiters of heart and life, strife. The flowers of joy as fragile are, as fair; THE IDLE LAKE. He who is acquainted with the Idle Lake should be thoroughly versed in the topography of mythical localities-should be familiar with the Bower of Bliss, the House of Fame, and the Cave of Despair - with Doubting Castle, Vanity Fair, and the Valley of the Shadow-with the Debateable Land, and the Islands of the Blest-with Armida's Garden, and that fearfully beautiful Arbour of Proserpine, where nothing but that which was noxious grew. All these legendary regions should strengthen in the beholder the love and wonderment which, as a confirmed lotuseater, an inveterate truant, and an incorrigible sluggard, he should feel for the Idle Lake. It is situated-anywhere; and why not in Fairyland? Why should I not chronicle its bearings, thus? Once upon a time a certain Sir Cymochles, a mailed knight certainly, who had the privilege of the entrée at Arthur's Court on levee days, whatever the privilege of the entrée may mean, but otherwise of no very bright repute, was wandering up and down "miscellaneously" (a common practice in Faëry), accompanied by one Atin, a person of unquestionably bad character, and in quest of another chi cast across. valrous person, hight Sir Guyon, with the wicked intent him to kill and slay. Sir Cymochles, on this felonious errand bent, chanced to come to a river, and, moored by the bank thereof, what should he discern but a little "gondelay," or gondola, spick and span, shining like a new pin, and so trimly bedecked with boughs and cunningly woven arbours, that the tiny cabin at the stern looked like a floating forest. In this delightful wherry there sat a lady fair to see, gaily dressed, and with a quantity of wild flowers in her hair. She was seemingly of a frivolous and irreverent temperament, and (the legends say) sat in the gondola grinning like a Cheshire cat. When she ceased to grin, she giggled, or hummed a refrain from some idle ditty. Now Sir Cymochles was desirous of passing to the other side of the river, and he asked the giggling lady if she would give him a Said the lady tittering, "As welcome, Sir Knight, as the flowers in May;" but she was not so ready to oblige Atin: stoutly, indeed, refusing him boatroom. Possibly she doubted his capacity to trim the boat properly, or haply she thought that he could not pay the ferry fee. So Atin was, like Lord Üllin in the ballad, "left lamenting" on the shore, and Sir Cymochles, with the grinning lady, went on a rare cruise. Away slid the shallow ship, more swift than swallows skim the liquid sky;" but the behaviour of the merry mariner on the voyage was, I regret to say, most improper. She possessed a whole storehouse of droll anecdotes, and while she told them she laughed till the tears rolled down her pretty naughty face. It is certain that she "chaffed" Sir Cymochles, and I am very much afraid that she tickled him; but he was rather pleased than otherwise with "her light behaviour and loose dalliance." Her name, she said, was Phædria. The inland sea, from which the river ran, and on whose bosom the gondelay was floating, was named, she remarked, the Idle Lake. 66 How the pair came at last to an island waste and void that floated in the midst of that great lake; how the laughing lady conducted the bemused knight to a chosen plot of fertile land, "amongst wide oases set, like a little nest;" how in that painted oasis there was แ no tree whose branches did not bravely spring, no branch on which a fine bird did not sit;" how she fed his eyes and senses with false delights; how she led him to a shady vale, and laid him down on a grassy plain; how he-oh! idiotic knight took off his helmet, and laid his disarmed head in her lap; how she, as he sank into slumber, lulled him with a wondrously beautiful love lay, in which she sang of "the lily, lady of the flow'ring field," and of "the fleur de lys, her lovely paramour;" how, subsequently, steeping with strong narcotics the eyelids of that bamboozled knight, she left him snoring, and hied her to her gondelay again; and how eventually she, plying at the Wapping Old Stairs of Faery, like a jolly, wicked young waterwoman as she was, picked up Sir Guyon, and him inveigled to the Idle Island in that Idle Lake; and how there was terrific broadsword combat of two about that "ladye debonnaire"-are not all these things written in the chronicle of the land which never was in the Faërie Queene of Edmund Spenser? If you be wise, you will take the marvellous poem with you as your only travelling companion the next time you journey to the Idle Lake. a I am not habitually idle. I cannot afford it. Highly as I appreciate the delight of doing nothing, of lying in bed and being fed with a spoon, or of eating peaches from the wall with my hands in my pockets, like Thomson, I am yet constrained, as a rule, to work for a certain number of hours in the course of every day or night, in order to obtain a certain quantity of household bread. I have been wandering these many years past in a wilderness of work, not unrelieved, however, by occasional oases. I remember them all, and dwell on the remembrance of them with infinite delight; even as that stolid wretch in hodden grey, tramping the treadmill's intolerable stairs, may dwell upon that soft and happy Sybarite time he passed after he was so lucky as to find the gentleman's gold watch and chain in the gentleman's pocket, and before he was "wanted" by the myrmidons of a justice which would take no denial, and stigmatised his treasure trove as plunder, and his lucky find as an act of larceny. A jovial time he had: all tripe and dominoes, and shag tobacco and warm ale. It was an oasis in his desert life of walking about in search of something to steal; and although there are poets and philosophers who maintain that the memory of happier days is a sorrow's crown of sorrow, I have always been of a contrary opinion; holding that, as hope springs eternal in the human breast, a man is seldom so miserable but that, if he has been already happy, he cherishes the aspiration of being happy again. He may be conjuring up visions of future tripe and warm ale, more succulent and more stimulating than ever: that tramping man in hodden grey. I am mindful of an oasis in Hampshire, and of one in Surrey; of a lotus-garden (where I overeat myself once) in an island in the Adriatic, and of a Valley of Poppies in North Africa. I know a bank in Andalusia on which I have reclined, pleasantly yawning, and drawing idle diagrams with my walking-stick in the sands of time at my feet. I know a cascade, far, far up in the mountains of Mexico, among the silver mines, the silvery plashing of whose downcome rings in the ear of my soul now, drowning the actual and prosaic lapping of the water" coming in" at Number Nine, next door. I am braced up tight between the shafts, blinkers block my eyes, and a cruel bit chafes my mouth, while those tearing wheels behind me seem pressing on my heels, and ever and anon the smacking whip of the driver scathes my sides; but do you think I forget the paddock in which I kicked up my heels, or resting my nose on the top of the fence, calmly contemplated the hacks on the highway, bridled and bitted, pursued by wheels, and quivering under the whipcord? Do you think that I forget the Idle Lake? I had been to the wars when I came upon it. It was an ugly war in which I was concerned, a desultory, unsatisfactory, semi-guerilla warfare, in the Italian Tyrol. Our commander was a famous Hero, but his troops were, to use the American expression, "a little mixed," and I am afraid that in several of the encounters in which we were engaged we ran away. We got scarcely anything to eat, and we slept more frequently in the open air than under a roof. It was a campaign performed by snatches, and interspersed with armistices; and now and again I used to come down out of the mountains, ragged, dirty, hungry, demoralised, and "exceeding fierce," and journey to Milan for letters, money, and clean linen, to have a warm bath, and enjoy a little civilisation. I am afraid that the guests at the Hotel Cavour, in the capital of Lombardy, formed anything but a favourable opinion of my manners; still, if I did nearly swallow my spoon as well as my soup, and occasionally seize a mutton cutlet by the shank, and gnaw it wolfishly, where was the harm? It was so long since I had had a decent dinner; nor did I know, when I got back to the mountains, when I might get another. It was on one of these expeditions to Milan that Eugenius Mildman and I struck up a friendship. He was as mild as his name; a beaming, pious, gushing, amiable creature, as innocent as a lamb, as brave as a lion-I marked his conduct once in a battle, from which, with the prudence of a non-combatant camp-follower, I timeously retreated-and as affectionate as a young gazelle. I wish they would keep such exemplary Englishmen as Mildman's race in England; but the good fellows have a strange fancy for wasting their sweetness on the desert air of foreign countries; they do good at Florence, and blush to find it fame at Malaga; they act the part of the Man of Ross in Norway, and their right hand knoweth not what their left hand doeth at Smyrna; they enrich Thebes and beautify Tadmor in the wilderness; and, with deplorable frequency, and in the prime of life, they die of low fever at Damascus. Mildman was just the kind of charitable soul to die at Damascus, universally regretted, yet with a life wasted, somehow, in good deeds, done at the wrong time, in the wrong place, for the benefit of the wrong kind of people. He was beautifully purposeless when I met him; was undecided as to whether he should publish a series of translations from the Sarmatian anthology, in aid of the Polish emigration, or raise a loan in furtherance of public (denominational) education in the republic of Guatimozin. Meanwhile he had been fighting a little with Garibaldi. I need scarcely add that he was a spiritualist and a homoeopathist, and that he occasionally spoke, not in the strongest terms of censure, of the community of Oneida Creek, the Agapemone, the followers of Johanna Southcote, and the Unknown Tongues. It was a toss up, I used to warn Mildman, between La Trappe and Colney Hatch for him. "Do something practical," I used to say to Mildman. "Pay a premium to a stockbroker, and spend a year in his office. Article yourself to a sharp solicitor. Enlist in the Sappers and Miners. You have plenty of money. Take chambers in St. James's, and discount bills at sixty per cent. Make a voyage to Pernambuco before the mast. Go in for the realities." But he wouldn't; and I am afraid that he will die at Damascus, universally regretted, and that his courier will run away with his dressing-case and his circular notes. I shall be ever grateful to Eugenius Mildman, for he made me acquainted with the Idle Lake. It was during one of my expeditions to Milan, and broiling summer weather. The Scala was closed; and at the Canobbiana (the operatic succursal to the grander theatre) the tenor had a wooden |