by the would-be-fine people, in imitation of the court, and by them called French.  Neither the Spectator, however, nor any of his periodical imitators have ever found out why a certain headland, bare as the back of my hand, should be dignified with the appellation of Beechey Head; unless indeed, according to the Eton grammar, our ancestors used the rule of lucus a non lucendo.  The reason, however, is to be found in the French language, and Beechey Head is the present guide of the old beau chef, whereby this point was once known.  The Spectator also, if I remember right, declared the old sign of the Cat and the Fiddle to be quite beyond his comprehension.  In truth, no two objects in the world have less to do with each other than a cat and a violin, and the only explanation ever given of this wonderful union, appears to be, that once upon a time, a gentleman kept a house with the sign of a Cat, and a lady one, with the sign of a Fiddle, or vice versa.  That these two persons fell in love, married, and set up an Inn, which to commemorate their early loves, they called the Cat and the Fiddle.  Such reasoning is exceedingly poetical, and also (mind, also, not therefore) exceedingly nonsensical.  No, Sir, the Cat and the Fiddle is of greater antiquity.  Did you ever read the History of Rome?  Of Rome! yes, of Rome.  Thence comes the Cat and the Fiddle, in somewhat a roundabout way perhaps, but so it is: 

  Vixtrix causa Diis placuit, sed victa Catoni.

Cato was faithful to the sacred cause of liberty, and disdained to survive it; and now for the fiddle.  In the days of good Queen Bess, when those who had borne the iron yoke of Mary, ventured forth and gloried in that freedom of conscience which had lately been denied them, a jolly innkeeper having lately cast off the shackles of the old religion, likened himself to the old Roman, and wrote over his door l’Hostelle du Caton fidelle.  The hostelle and its sign lasted longer than the worthy gentleman, and having gone shockingly to decay, was many years after re-established.  But alas! the numerous French words once mixed with our language had vanished, barbarized, and ground down into a heterogeneous mass of sounds; and le Caton fidelle was no longer known to his best friends when resuscitated under the anomalous title of the Cat and Fiddle!!

XX.

* * * * *

THE BLIND GIRL.

(For the Mirror.)

  As fair a thing as e’er was form’d of clay.

BYRON.

  Sweet wanderer—­we have known her long! 
    And often on our ear,
  Has gush’d the cadence of her song,
    As if some stream were near. 
  Her path was through our tranquil dell,
  When breezes kiss’d the curfew bell.

  We gaz’d upon the golden hair,
    That o’er her white brow shone,
  And beauty’s tinge had cluster’d there,
    A grace unlike its own. 
  We call’d it beautiful—­that brow! 
  But rayless were the eyes below.