He strode out of the room. His parting word was no idle boast. Sir John heard of him and of his just claims no more; and the brave-hearted man swept the memory of the villain from his soul. He would not have it there. The baronet soothed his conscience, if it ever gave him any uneasiness, by the supposition that the aged mathematician had found some pupils--that probably he eked out as comfortable a subsistence as before, and had only exchanged the dreamy pursuit of scientific fame, for the more practical labours of tuition. But no such fortune attended Mr Simpson. He had lived too long out of the world to find either friends or pupils, and the more manifest his poverty, the more hopeless became his applications. Meanwhile, utter destitution stood face to face before him. Did he spend his last coin in the purchase of the mortal dose? Did he leap at night from any of the bridges of the metropolis? He was built of stouter stuff. He collected together his manuscripts, a book or two, which had happily for him been unsaleable, his ink-bottle and an iron pen, and marched straight--to the parish workhouse. There was no refusing his claim here. Poverty and famine were legible in every garment, and on every feature. In that asylum he ended his days, unknown, unsought for. One of his companions, dressed like himself, in the workhouse costume, who had gathered that he was the sufferer by some act of injustice of a rich oppressor, thought, on one occasion, to console him by the reflection, that his wrongdoer would certainly suffer for it in the next world--in his own energetic language, that he would certainly be d----d. "Not on my account--not, I hope, on my account," said the mathematician, with the greatest simplicity in the world. "No revenge either here or hereafter. But if civil government deserved the name, it would have given me justice now. Had I been robbed of sixpence on the highway, there would have been hue and cry--the officers of government would not have rested till they had found and punished the culprit. I am robbed of all; and, because I am poor and unfriended--circumstances which make the loss irremediable--the law puts forth no hand to help me. Men will prate about the expense--the burden on the national revenue--as if justice to all were not the very first object of government--as if--but truce to this. My good friend, you see these fragments of snuff that I have collected--could you get them exchanged for me for a little ink?" MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. Part XX. "Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?" Shakspeare.