His name, Gwynplaine, scarcely known at any time, had disappeared under this nickname, as his face had under his grin.

His popularity was like his visage—a mask.

His name, however, could be read on a large placard in front of the Green Box, which offered to the crowd this narrative composed by Ursus :

Here you may see Gwynplaine abandoned at the age of ten years, on the night of the 29th of January, 1690, by the villanous Comprachicos, on the borders of the sea at Portland. The little boy has grown up, and is called now,

THE GRINNING MAN.

The existence of these mountebanks was as an existence of lepers in a leper-house, and of the blessed in one of the Pleiades. It was every day a quick transition from an outside and noisy exhibition, to the most complete seclusion. Every evening they made their exit from this world. They were like the dead who vanished on condition of being reborn next day. A comedian is a revolving light, appearing for one moment, disappearing the next, and existing for the public but as a phantom or a light, according as he is absent or in their presence, as his life circles round. To the exhibition succeeded claustration. When the performance was finished, whilst the audience dispersed, and the hearty rounds of satisfaction of the crowd was lost in the distant streets, the Green Box shut up its platform, like a fortress its drawbridge, and all communication with human beings was cut off. On one side the universe, on the other this caravan; and this caravan contained liberty, clear consciences, courage, devotion, innocence, happiness, love-all the constella

tions.

The seeing blindness and the deformed beloved sat side by side, -hand pressing hand, temple touching temple,-and exalted above earth, talking in a low voice.

This compartment in the middle served two purposes-for the public it was a theatre, for the actors an eating room.

Ursus, always delighted to make a comparison, profited by this diversity of destination to liken the central compartment in the Green Box to the arradach in an Abyssinian hut.

Ursus counted the receipts, then they supped. In love all is ideal. To eat and drink together when one loves admits of all sorts of sweet promiscuous touches, made by stealth, by which a mouthful becomes a kiss. They drank ale or wine from the same glass, as

ey might drink dew out of the same lily. Two souls in an agape

have the grace of two birds. Gwynplaine waited on Dea, cut her bread, poured out her drink, and got too close.

"Hum!" cried Ursus, and he turned away, his scolding finishing in a smile, notwithstanding his efforts.

The wolf supped under the table, inattentive to every thing which did not concern his bone.

Fibi and Vinos shared the repast, but gave little trouble. These

vagabonds, half savage, remained bewildered, and spoke in the gipsy language to each other.

At length Dea re-entered the women's apartment with Fibi and Vinos. Ursus chained up Homo under the Green Box; Gwynplaine looked after the horses, the lover having become a groom, as if he had been a hero of Homer's, or a paladin of Charlemagne's. At midnight all slept, the wolf excepted, who, from time to time, alive to his responsibility, opened an eye. The next day, in the morning, they met again. They breakfasted together, generally on ham or tea. Tea was introduced into England in 1698. Then Dea, after the Spanish fashion, took a siesta, according to the advice of Ursus, who

considered her delicate, and slept some hours, whilst Gwynplaine and Ursus did all the little jobs of work, without and within, which their wandering life made necessary. It was rare that Gwynplaine wandered out of the Green Box, except in desert places and solitary wastes. In cities he only went out at night, concealed by a large slouched hat, so as not to exhibit his face in the street.

They could only see the uncovered face in the theatre.

The Green Box had little frequented the cities. Gwynplaine at twenty-four had never seen larger towns than the Cinque Ports. His renown, however, was increasing. It began to rise above the populace, and to percolate in a higher sphere. Amongst the admirers of, and runners after strange foreign curiosities and prodigies, it was known that there existed somewhere, leading a wandering life, sometimes here, sometimes there, an extraordinary monster. They talked about him, they sought him, they asked where is he? The grinning man was becoming decidedly famous. A certain lustre was reflected on "Chaos Vanquished."

So much so, that, one day, Ursus, being ambitious, said,— "We must go to London."

PART II.-BOOK THE THIRD.

The Beginning of the Fissure.

CHAPTER I.

THE TADCASTER INN.

LONDON at this period had but one bridge-London-bridge, with houses built on it. This bridge united London to Southwark, a suburb which was paved with flint pebbles taken from the Thames, divided into small streets and alleys, jammed together, and having, like the city, a great quantity of buildings, houses, dwellings, and huts of wood, a pell-mell mixture of combustibles, where fire might take its pleasure-1666 had proved it.

Southwark was then pronounced Soudric, now it is pronounced Sousouorc, or near it; indeed, an excellent way of pronouncing English names, is not to pronounce them. Thus, for Southampton, say, Stpntn.

This was the time when "Chatham" was pronounced je t'aime.

The Southwark of that time resembles the Southwark of to-day about as much as Vaugirard resembles Marseille. It was a suburbit is a city. Nevertheless, it gave a great impetus to navigation. The long old Cyclopean wall was studded with rings, to which were anchored the city barges. This wall was called the Effroc wall, or the Effroc stone.

York, when it was Saxon, was called Effroc. The legend related that a Duke of Effroc had been drowned at the foot of the wall. Certainly the water there was deep enough to drown a duke. In the deepest water there was six good fathoms. The excellence of this little anchorage attracted sea vessels, and the old Dutch tub, called the Vograat, came to anchor at the Effroc stone. The Vograat made the crossing from London to Rotterdam, and from Rotterdam to London, punctually once a week. Other barges went twice a day, either for Deptford, Greenwich, or Gravesend, going down with one tide and returning with the next. The voyage

to Gravesend, though twenty miles, could be accomplished in six hours.

The Vograat was of a model which can no longer be seen now, except in naval museums. This tub was almost a junk. At that time, when France copied Greece, Holland copied China. The Vograat, a heavy hull with two masts, was partitioned perpendicularly, so as to be water-tight, having a narrow room in the middle of the ship, and two decks, one fore and the other aft. The decks were raised as in steam vessels of the present day, which had this advantage, that by this arrangement, in foul weather, the force of the wave was diminished, and the inconvenience of exposing the cargo to the action of the sea was avoided. From the absence of any parapet, nothing arrested the progress of any one on board from falling over. Thence, frequent falls and losses of men, which have caused this model to fall into disuse. The Vograat went straight for Holland, and did not even stop at the stairs at Gravesend.

An old ridge of stones, rock rather than masonry, ran along the bottom of the Effroc stone, and practicable at all tides, facilitated going on board the ships fastened to the wall. This wall was, at several distances, furnished with steps. It marked the south point of Southwark. A heap of rubbish at the top permitted the passengers to rest their elbows on the summit of the Effroc stone, as on the parapet of a quay. From that point the Thames was visible; on the other side of the water London ended. There was nothing but fields.

Up the river from the Effroc Stone, where the Thames bent nearly

opposite the palace of Saint James, behind Lambeth House, not far from the walk called then Foxhall (Vauxhall, probably), there was, between a pottery where they made porcelain, and a glass-blower's, where they made ornamental bottles, one of those unenclosed back spaces covered with grass, called formerly in France cultures and mails; and in England, bowling-greens. Of bowling-green, a green carpet on which to roll a ball, the French have made boulingrin.

Folks have now-a-days this green space inside their houses, only it is put on the table, and is a cloth instead of turf, and is called billiards.

It is difficult to see why, having boulevard (boule-vert), which is the same word as bowling-green, the French should have given themselves boulingrin. It is surprising that a person so grave as the Dictionary should have all these useless luxuries.

The bowling-green of Southwark was called Tarrinzeau Field, because it had belonged to the Barons Hastings, who are Barons Tarrinzeau and Mauchline.

From the Lords Hastings the Tarrinzeau Field passed to the Lords Tadcaster, who had made a speculation of it, in the same manner that, at a later date, a Duke of Orleans made a speculation of the Palais Royal. Afterwards this Tarrinzeau became waste ground and parochial property.

Tarrinzeau Field was a kind of permanent fair ground, covered with jugglers, athletes, mountebanks, and music on platforms; and always full of "fools, who came to look at the devil," as Archbishop Sharpe said, which means to go to the play.

A great many inns, which took in and sent the public to these outlandish exhibitions, opened on this place, which kept holiday all the year round, and thereby prospered. These inns were simply stalls, inhabited only during the day. In the evening the tavernkeeper put into his pocket the key of the tavern and went away.

Only one of these inns was a house, the only dwelling in the whole bowling-green, the caravans of the fair ground having the power of disappearing from one moment to another, in consequence of the absence of stability, and of the vagabondage of all mountebanks.

Mountebanks have no roots to their lives.

This inn, called the Tadcaster Inn, after the name of its former owners, was rather an inn than a tavern, rather a hotel than an inn, and had a carriage entrance, and rather a large yard.

The carriage entrance, opening from the court on to the field, was