LUCKLESS LOVERS.

The late Bishop of Durham was a luckless lover. It is said that in his early middle life, when he occupied a professor's chair at Cambridge, he had it borne in upon him that it is not good for a man — even a Cambridge professor — to be alone. He proposed to a young lady, but had the ill-luck to be rejected. Meeting with this misadventure early in life, the bishop resolved to flee matrimony, so he declined to bind himself in matrimonial bonds all his days. Rather a pretty story is related regarding the young lady who jilted him. She took for her husband a Church of England clergyman, and whenlDr Lightfoot had been a little while in Durham, he found her in a country vicarage, blessed with a large family and an uncomfortably small income. The bishop at once sought an opportunity of advancing his rival to one [of the best livings in the diocese. David Hnme, the well-known historian and philosopher, has a place among the jilted. When he was a young man he courted a young beauty of Edinburgh, and was rejected. Hume, it is said, did not " take on " much over this refusal, but doggedly gave his mind to his studies and attained a first place in literature. When he become famous it was hinted to him that the saucy beauty who threw him over had now changed her mind, "ISp J»aye I," answered

Hume, and then he Jell to writing his " Treatise of Human -Nature." Savonarola, known to all readers of church i history, seems to have been urged to devote ' his heart to his work, on account of his heart and hand being refused by the girl of his choice. "His Hopes," says Castelar, " were centred in the woman he loved ; his life was Eet upon the possession of her, and when her family finally rejected him — partly on account of his profession and partly on account of his person — he believed it was death that had come upon him, when, in truth it was immortality." Every American is now proud of George Washington, and every Britisher too, for that matter ; but in the marriage market | George seems to have made a very poor show. He was almost losing heart of becoming anybody's "hubby" at all, having ! proposed to five different women before anybody would have him. Shelley's first love was Harriet Grove, a maiden of sweet 17, who cast the poet off. The love story in the life of John Keats is well known. Keats was very shy before women, but to Fanny Browne he seems to have opened his heart. Their engagement was terminated by his death, and his last desire was that a letter from the girl he loved, along with a letter from his sister, and a purse, should be laid with him in his coffin. Turner, the painter, was an unlucky lover. Painting did not occupy him so utterly that he had no time for love-making, so it would seem that he fell in love with a maid, proposed to her, and was accepted. Owing to her not receiving letters from him at regular intervals during a somewhat lengthy absence, the lady concluded that Turner bad forgotten his love vow, and transferred her affections to another. When Turner returned he had a severe shoek — she was the wife of another. Gibbon, the historian of the Roman Empire, is a fine example to jilted lovers. He seems to have been " smitten " with the charms of Mademoiselle Curabod, but though he saw her and loved her dearly she was not to become his. He thus tells the story of his luckless love :—": — " I soon learned," he writes, " that my father would not hear of this strange alliance, and that without his consent I was myself destitute and helpless. After a painful struggle, I yielded to my fate. I sighed as a lover, and obeyed as a son. My wound was insensibly healed by time, absence, and the habits of a new life." Charles Lamb was one of the most luckless of lovers, though one of the most noble. In one of his 'essays — that on "Dream Children" he tells how "for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever," he courted the fair Alice W n, and "how the children of Alice call Bartoum father." For the lova he bore his sister Mary, Lamb gave up all hope of wedded bliss. It is one of the finest incidents in literary history. Disappointments in love have sometimes strange effects. Forty years ago Moses Evans, a school teacher in Monroe, County, Term., was jilted by a young lady. He forswore communication with his fellow men and buried himself in the mountains. He has become celebrated in those parts as the " Wild Man of Chilhowe." He has maintained an unbroken silence all these years, keeping away from the haunts of men, and living in the almost impenetrable fastnesses ' of the mountains. The other week an enterprising citizen of Athens, Tennessee, employed a party of ! negroes to capture Moses and set him up for I exhibition in Chattanooga. His 40 years of | unbroken silence had made him forget the use of his organs of speech. Hi? memory is j impaired too. His face is not unpleasant, though his grey hair is unkempt and scraggy and his beard like a broom. His feet are bare and as tough as leather. He is large of frame, and as strong as a lion. For 40 years he has lived on the hills absolutely alone, aid has, with nothing but a stout oaken staff, battled with tha wild beasts of the mountains, and hunted the bear and deer for his winter support of food. Another victim of Cupid was Jules Bourglay, who some weeks ago was found dead in a cave near Sing Sing, New York. Jules was well known over portions of Eastern New York and Connecticut for the last 30 years, his soubriquet being "The Old Leather Man,",on account ofjhis always being dressed in a leather suit. In his ceaseless wanderings he did occasional jobs of plumbing, for which he . would never take any return, save a dish of food or a plug of tobacco. The barn was his favourite sleep- j ing place. He was entirely harmless, and is j said to have been made crazy by having been jilted in France in ISSG. In "that year Jules Bourglay was both . young and handsome. He had won the heart of a wealthy leather merchant's daughter, and entered the merchant's employ, hoping soon to be made a partner. He began to speculate in leather heavily, and when a crash came his employer was impoverished, he himself was ruined, and his affianced wife fell ill and finally died of a broken heart. Poor Bourglay's mind never recovered from these shocks. He left France forthwith and went to America, determined to always do penance by wearing leather. This he did to his dying day, and was buried in the same habit he had worn in his weary journeyings. Women also are very often luckless lovers, though unhappily their stories never become widely known. They let concealment eat their hearts away, and die and make no sign. A strange story was recently told of a luckless lady lover in Hungary. Fraulein Lina died a few weeks ago at Ofen, in Hungary. For 30 years the Fraulein has never gone outside her own house. She was the daughter of wealthy parents, and was, 30 years ago, looked upon by all her friends as bright and pretty and lucky, being engaged to one of the most prosperous men in the town. Her lover one day, to test her obedience and love, desired her not to go abroad into the streets on a certain feast day. She promised she would not, but failed to keep her promise and went out. The next day her lover called, and so indignant was he at her failing to make so small a sacrifice, that he declared she was not suitable to be his wife, and released her from her engagement. Miss Lina thereupon made a vow that never so long as she lived would she cross the threshold of her house, and. this row ebe fcepfc ;to the very letter,

never having been seen out of doors for 30 years. Another instance of a luckless lady lover reaches us from Stuttgart. In the beginning of this year there died there Fraulein Marie Behrcnds, whose history was romantic. In the year 1844 the poet Lenau, to wbom she was betrothed, went to Stuttgart to claim her as his bride. He suddenly gave such Bigns of having lost his wits, that marriage was declared impossible, and the poet was removed to a lunatic asylum at Winnethal, where he died in 1850. His forlorn bride remained all through her life passionately attached to his memory. She refused to entertain any other offers of marriage, though she had many, and always took the most intense delight in keeping the memory of her dead lover fresh and green. Lovers, who from prudential or other reasons have to enter into very long engagements, may fitly be placed in the lists of the luckless. In the history of long engagements the following is possibly the longest on record, and is peculiar in this, that even after 50 years' waiting the marriage didn't come off. Ireland claims the credit of this love record, the parties being inhabitants of Lurgan, in the North of Ireland. In that town there recently died Clements Bingham, a shoemaker. He was known as a hard-working, respectable man, though a trifle eccentric. At the time of his death Bingbam was in the 65th year of his age, and for nearly 30 years had been engaged to be married. All this time the course of true love ran smoothly enough, but for some reason, which p^sscth knowledge, the unconscionable courtship never seemed to get any " forrarder." and the matrimonial knot seemed to be terribly tedious in the tying. Every Sunday evening the two lovers billed and cooed to each other, and said all their pretty nothings with coramendablc regularity. Bingham's household affairs were carefully supervised by his patient sweetheart, whilst he returned the favour by acting as her financial adviser, and doing her many a good turn in her business transactions. It is said that both had for many years possessed their wedding garments, and solemnly preserved them against the day of the marriage, but that somehow they never could bring themselves to the point of undergoing the ceremony and taking each other for better or for worse. Death at last stepped in while the two aged lovers were leisurely making up their minds, nnd carried Bingham off. His fiancee is said to have declared that this would be a lesson to her. Her next lover will need to hurry up, and whisk her long to the altar in. double quick time. Though luckless lovers like Fraulein Lina and Moses Evans flee all pleasant delights when crossed in love, some luckless lovers are gifted with more sense. A very sensible luckless lover was James Burdick, whose instructive history reaches us from tho State of Illinois. Burdick, when he reached the mature age of 84 years, thought it would be a fitting thing that he should take unto himself a wife. With this intent he opened up a correspondence with a winsome widow, and was so far successful in his suit that, as time progressed, James was told to come along in his Sunday clothes, and the widow would be " willin' " to become his " ownest own." Though the widow stayed a long way off he didn't mind this a bit, and started off to be married. He was overwhelmed with grief, however, on his arrival, to find that his prospective bride had suddenly died, and that, in fact, the funeral was then in progress. In the midst of a paroxysm of grief the broken-hearted octogenarian exclaimed, " I have come all the way from Pennsylvania to marry her ; what shall I do ? He was evidently not inclined to make such a long journey for nothing. After sleeping over his plans for a night, he made up his mind he would go round the place, and call on all the widows, and see who would have him. This James very diligently did ; and succeeded in prevailing on a comely dame to accept his hand and heart, and the marriage was promptly celebratoi bj a justice. The alliance on both sides is said to have given unlimited satisfaction, and James, who is somewhat deficient in grammatical skill, makes answer to the curious who make inquiry regarding his courtship and wedding, that it was " the slickest and satisfactoryest bit of business he ever done all his life."