ment, no attempt to disguise unwelcome truths, or flatter worldly souls with words of hope, delicious but delusive. The preacher takes his stand upon the true ground; he cries aloud and spares not; he speaks in solemn tones of solemn things, and worketh so that he may win men back to ways of wisdom. We said that love was one of the most prominent characteristics of the Criticisms,' and this same spirit manifests itself in the 'Orations,' only refined and ennobled, as it ought to be, by the more important subjects under consideration. It is here the love of one who sorrows over sinful man, seeks to restore the wanderer, and bid the throbbing heart be still. It is the love which liveth and which dieth not-the love which is the sole fulfilling of the law-the love which rises high above both faith and hope, and is the primal element of God himself.

But we must forbear enlarging, and content ourselves with a single extract. Discussing the fate of Belshazzar, and the fall of Babylon, the following reflections are introduced: The vision of the Israelitish seer is realised; Babylon submits to her doom. I see another city more gigantic still. I see her streets stretching for miles. I see her squares adorned with splendid abodes, and glittering in the sunshine. I see her temples rearing their towers, and turrets, and cupolas into the bright blue of heaven. I see her palaces of marble rising, with their massive architecture, against the sky. I see millions thronging her marts. I see myriads crowding her highways. I see multitudes dancing to the sound of harp and lute; and I see in the distant horizon fingers of a man's hand writing, Tekel, thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.' I see the thunderbolt ever ready to fall. I see the fire ready to consume. I see the cloud ready to enshroud in darkness. The pomp and revelry of the vast capital cease. Riches are thrown to the earth; wealth is despised; honours are neglected. Every eye turns to the awful characters. The marts are lonely and still. No prancing of horses, no rush of chariots. Every gaze is on that light. I see the city moved. I see her millions prostrate. I see her temples, and towers, and palaces splintered by the lightning's glare. I see her instruments of sweet melody broken, and lying_untuned, untouched. I see her pageantry forgotten. I see the bolt descend; I hear the crash. The city is no more. Know you that city, listeners? Know you any of its citizens? Know you its wine-cup, its wealth, its mirth? Know you those letters glaring with mysterious fire? The city is the world; you are its citizens. You have tasted its wine, and longed for its wealth, and desired its mirth. And some of you have read the mysterious word 'Tekel,' and have felt its meaning. All of you shall know it now. Not one of you shall be ignorant. The priest of God reveals it this morning. He points you to the terrible letters. None of you shall plead ignorance any longer-none of you shall appear before Jehovah's judgment-seat with any such evasions now. I tell it in your ears. I pronounce it distinctly. I re-echo it again and again. I pronounce it to every soul. I pronounce it on every listener. To each one I speak. pass by none. I include all. I pronounce it on every man, every woman, every child. Poverty shall not aid you in escaping; riches shall not avail you in flying from the sentence. Ignorance and learning are alike useless. I reiterate it to each individual: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting!' -wanting in time, wanting in eternity, if Christ takes not the balance.'

Here we must take our leave of these delightful volumes, and we do so reluctantly, for it has fared with us as with the

Dwellers in a lovely land,

A land of lavish lights, and floating shades,
And broad green flats, border'd by woody capes,
That lessen ever as they stretch away
Into the distant blue.

The soul once opened, how different is the aspect of life. It is the hour of majority that makes us heirs of the allembracing universe.

Original Poetry.

TRUTH.

A spirit form of majesty
Still wanders o'er our earth,
And in its silent dignity

You trace its heavenly birth.
Unchanging, earnest, flourishing,
In never-fading youth,

All love and honour cherishing-
That spirit form is TRUTH.
Spreading its power far and wide-
Unaided and alone-

To crush black falsehood's bitter pride,
The spirit Truth has gone.
And though in that great moral fight
Truth oft is stricken down,
Ere long it vindicates its right,
And gains the victor's crown.
It lights the path of poverty

With radiance from on high,
And wipes the tear of agony

From many a weeping eye;
It raises up the widow's head,
When by affliction tried,
And in the hour of sorest need
Stands proudly by her side.
Where thoughts of gain would tempt the soul
To stray from virtue's road,
Truth then secures her firm control,

And points the heart to God.
When noble minds, in shrinking fright,

Quail 'neath the liar's frown,
Truth magnifies its mission bright,

And treads that liar down.

It steels the heart in virtue's cause
To vice's richest bribe,
And counteracts by noble laws
The poison we imbibe.
Defying station, pomp, and state,
The power of the strong,
It cringes not beneath the great,
Nor justifies the wrong.

It needs no tinsel varnishing
To show its native worth,
Nor aught of earthly garnishing
To prove its heavenly birth.
But in the Christian's life it shines-
To him 'tis largely given-
And at his death it but declines
Brighter to blaze in heaven.
Shame on us, that its blessed power
Can boast so little done!
A burning shame! that every hour
Sees some life-lie begun.
Deep, deep disgrace, that all the arts
That treachery can find

Are used to crush poor drooping hearts,
And manacle the mind!

O, heaven-born Truth, when wilt thou come,
With all thine earnest grace,

To make all earth thy chosen home,
And us thy chosen race?

Is it when right shall have the might,
And mercy be in men?

When only love shall shed her light?
Hark! Echo answers, When?

D. M.

There is in each man a somewhat that acquaints him with the nature and origin of all things, but will tell him nothing of the nature and origin of itself. He is ever obtaining sibylline leaves, but cannot get sight of the sibyl.

CHAP. I.

THAT it is a most difficult task to write a good autobiography, is abundantly proved by the frequent failure of those who have attempted to do so; the writers themselves being probably for the most part as ill satisfied with their productions as any of their readers can be. Many men luxuriate in reminiscences of childish or juvenile delights. Pleasing as such tender recollections are to ourselves--and they undoubtedly are so in every case, whatever the incidents themselves thus recurring to memory may have been-they are never excitative of much pleasure in the minds of others; we utter them upon sufferance, none choosing to protest against an annoyance which themselves are conscious of often inflicting on others. We tolerate them sometimes out of sheer politeness, but commonly that, by a reciprocation of the favour, we may in turn obtain a hearing for ourselves. If such trivialities are all but insufferable in conversation, they are little likely to meet our approval when deliberately set forth as the staple of a so-called autobiography. The truth is, the satisfaction we derive from such memories of the past is altogether incommunicable—it is a joy that a stranger intermeddleth not with. Some autobiographers, again, shunning this method of boring us, fall into other hallucinations not a whit more agreeable to us, their victims. Instead of telling us what they have said and done, and so giving us the history of their outer lives, they attempt to portray their inner lives, to give us an image of their souls. In place of words and actions, we have thoughts and feelings. An affectation of extreme candour runs through all, while the most purblind reader feels quite acutely the painful conviction that the honest author is all the time labouring to set forth his ideal self instead of the real; is telling us what he would have been, rather than what he has been and is. Vices, and failures, and blunders, all serve to advance their subject in his own estimation; for he thinks, and wishes us too to believe, that 'e'en his failings lean to virtue's side.'

But, besides this apologetic strain, into which all who thus write must inevitably fall-for no man can review even his conduct, far less his frames of mind and motives, without observing much that needs explanation and ex

cuse

there is another and a still more serious inconvenience attending such a style of narrating one's own history, which is, the all but impossibility of clearly conveying to others ideas respecting emotions, principles of action, and so forth. One's feelings are frequently of so subtle a character, so incomprehensible even to ourselves; so indistinct, too, are our views; dim and shadowy images of more than Protean versatility of form flitting and floating before the mind: impressions, sometimes brightening into vivid realities, but before we are aware fading into phantom shapes, whether newly formed of the imagination or of the memory revisiting their former haunts, we ourselves know not, and still passing from our consciousness like the half-remembered ideas of some pleasing dream we would, but cannot recall. These, and kindred mental states, can never be fitly described; we cannot picture these prospects of the intellect to the senses of our fellow-men; nay, we cannot even renew them to ourselves; and hence it is, that we read so many rhapsodical autobiographies, in which the terms subjective and objective, outness and consciousness, oneness, depths of being, innermost soul, the real, the mystical, the spiritual, the sensuous, and I know not what others, mingling in bewildering confusion, present us with a jargon of sounds intended to introduce us, according to the author's statement, into the deepest recesses of his heart of hearts; but which expressions, never having represented even to the person employing them any very clear ideas, usually convey either no meaning at all, or at best very vague and undefined impressions, which we may in all charity believe differ in every one reading them, all alike differing no less from those suggested to the writer, and, as he flatters himself, conveyed by them.

reader to expect that I shall not, in presenting him with a scene or two from my experience, detain him with curious speculations as to causes of such and such actions, explanations of motives, and long disquisitions on idiosyncrasy, peculiar temperament, bias of education, or craniological development, further, at least, than may be absolutely necessary to account for certain seemingly contradictory lines of procedure.

My intention, in transcribing a few loose pages of my history, or at best a short episode in it, is to narrate events in the order of their occurrence, to state circumstances in that chain of sequence which constituted the life of the writer, leaving the reader to draw such inferences and make such reflections on the same as may seem to him good.

If any one shall say, We do not like mere facts and incidents, the sayings and doings of a commonplace sort of fellow; his tricks, expedients, plans, failures and successes, scrapes and skirmishes; those things done which ought not to have been done, and those things undone which ought to have been done: we prefer some more philosophical inquiry into the principles of action, illustrated only by such statements of fact as we are assured are to be the very staple of this narrative. If this be the language of any reader, I can only say to such, I assure you, you will be disappointed in perusing these sheets; you may therefore save yourself the trouble of reading any further. If I tell you of a man stealing a donkey, and being tried and transported for so doing, I give you due notice that I shall no more hold myself bound to show cause why he thus acted, be the said cause defective education, anomalous constitution of the moral sense, radical perversion of the religious faculty issuing in incapability to comprehend or act upon the second great principle of the moral law, or merely hereditary and constitutional acquisitiveness manifesting itself in strong affection for filthy lucre and neighbours' goods: I say I shall no more hold myself required to trace the deed up to one or other of these causes, than I shall consider it my duty to ascertain the pedigree of the aforesaid donkey.

Thus much being premised, we enter at once on the history of a few years of my life; and, passing very briefly over the years of childhood and early youth, I propose to offer the reader a few reminiscences of that most interesting and important period of a man's existence, during which, in the majority of cases, his position in life is decided; during which he either establishes himself in some calling, and settles soberly down to review his springtime promise, engage heartily in present duties, and anticipate future repose and comfort, and, like a gallant ship, having safely cleared the harbour, springs forward with flowing sail on the voyage of life; or, either by his own incapacity or carelessness, or the uncontrollable necessity of circumstances, finds his sails rent and his bark shattered by the storm, and doomed henceforth to drift to and fro, never again to launch proudly forth; but slowly and toilsomely to hug the shore, creeping on until stranded on some not hidden but unavoidable rock, or at best to make some obscure port, and there hide his shame.

Few, very few, young trees are there which do not whiten with a profusion of blossom in the spring; alas, that a cold nipping frost should scatter that blossom! alas, that that spring knows no return: once blighted, no after-bloom succeeds, and cold-hearted men look on the fruitless tree, and cry, Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground? How seldom does the voice of kindness whisper hope, and gently bid the wanderer return! How seldom is the hand of sympathy extended to reclaim the erring one! yea, how often are misfortune and guilt confounded with each other, and treated with cold neglect or bitter scorn! Verily, the path of virtue and rectitude is hedged about; we value the road more than the travellers; and, while our hedges close no man in, they shut all men out? to forsake it is easy, to return impossible. We have a strong fortification, and happy are those who dwell within

it; but let them not pass though its open gates, for they can no more enter therein. And thus the poor wretch, fleeing from the destroyer, and hopeful of escaping the cruel hands of pursuing vices, reaches the castle, and looks up to its impregnable walls for shelter, and remembers the sweet complacency of his once virtuous heart, and longs-oh! how deeply, how ardently longs-to enter again its happy, hallowed precincts: in vain, he longs in vain. Alone he struggles with vice, while virtue looks coldly on, and hears unmoved his last faint aspiration after goodness, and sees him soon powerless, again a captive, and hurried off by overwhelming hosts into depths of depravity and wretchedness to which even he, poor guilty one, was before a stranger. Fools that we are, to guard the jewel so carefully while it is in the casket, but spurn it from us with disdain if it have fallen to the earth; to keep it so watchfully, but, once lost, to care not for its recovery; nay, so far from going forth anxiously to seek for it, we refuse to receive it even when it is found. Pity it is that joy over repenting sinners is known in heaven among angels, rather than on earth among men.

But I must not trouble the reader with moral reflections and doleful lamentations. Let us quit such themes, and proceed to something more interesting. I stated that I design to select a few pages relating to youth-time, rather than attempt to lead the reader through a tedious history of infancy and childhood to the season when life begins to be eventful. I will, therefore, hurry rapidly over the few preliminary statements which appear requisite to introduce the actor to your notice. My earliest recollections are associated with a narrow thoroughfare in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials, and consequently near the centre of the metropolis. I enjoyed all the consideration and attention usually accorded to the youngest member of a family, having been born some years after the youngest of my three sisters, who, with my father, mother, two shopmen, and a strong country girl acting in the capacity of servant-of-all-work, constituted our household. The shop in which my father conducted a pretty extensive and profitable business was an old-fashioned dingy-looking place as need be; and, being supported on either hand by similar structures, besides having on the opposite side of the narrow street a row of such edifices stretching far as eye could reach, it may readily be supposed that a throng of customers at one or other of these establishments, gave the street a tolerably busy aspect at most hours of the day. To see the sky, or rather smoke overhead, it was necessary either to advance into the street or to mount to a window in the third storey of our domicile; but, as such a sight was by no means particularly delightful, the experiment was, I believe, but seldom made. Our house consisted of the aforesaid shop, which, being the mainstay of the whole concern, and the part which occupied the first place in all our considerations, deserves to be mentioned before the other apartments. The shop, then, appears to have always held the same prominent and honourable position in the estimation of those who were concerned in the erection or habitation of the premises. Every arrangement seems to have deferred to its convenience and adaptation for business. It had been allowed to expand as widely as possible, to the utter annoyance and discomfort of the little parlour, which had the misfortune to share with it the ground-floor. Of course, it fronted the street. Of course, when it was ascertained that a small closet would contribute to its comfort, the requisite space was remorselessly stolen from the sittingroom. Of course, the perfect success of this act of oppression prompted a repetition of the deed; and this system of encroachment upon the rights of the little apartment had continued, until it was brought to a stand by the determined opposition of the door on the one side and the fireplace on the other; and the question being mooted whether door, window, fireplace, and all, were to be sacrificed to the rapacity of business, it was unanimously decided— chiefly, I believe, in deference to the opinion of an architect who feared that the projected alteration would bring the whole place down together-to permit so much of the

little room as had escaped the jaws of the devourer to remain.

Nor must it be supposed that the shop thus absorbing all available space was very large. It must certainly be pleaded, in extenuation of its greedy enlargement of its borders, that there was abundant occasion for effort at extension; in fact, there was more room for enlargement than for business. It was a treat to examine the arrangement of the little place. The skill manifested in disposing of its various contents was really admirable; and doubtless the first impression derived from inspection would be that of a large box packed for travelling. The principle of a place for everything, and everything in its place, was rigidly, and indeed per force of necessity, adhered to. From the floor to the ceiling, from the window in front to the wall behind, it was crammed; and how I contrived to pass in and out, to dive under, or wriggle through, with merely such slight disasters as losing a shoe in a tub of butter or soft soap, or upsetting a tin of treacle or trainoil over me, is more than at this date I can understand. A small back-parlour, some half-dozen bedrooms upstairs, a cellar (in which was stowed away a continuation of the miscellaneous articles composing my father's stock), and at the back of this a dismal kitchen, completed the accom. modation of the house.

It will have been perceived from what has been said, that my father was a general dealer; i. e., that he dealt in everything he could lay his hands on, save and except he could not possibly find room for it in the place. The proprietor of this heterogeneous heap of goods had begun life in the country, having inherited a small patrimony from my grandfather, who left his son a very moderate estate, together with considerable acquaintance with the mode of making money, but utterly ignorant how to spend it. Whether the latter be not of the two difficulties decidedly the greater, I leave facts to testify. My father's experience goes all to prove that it is so, for he spent his paternal estate very badly, that is to say, too fast. Obtaining the assistance of a few young men of liberal spirits, they among them very soon disposed of the property; and, my father assured me, so little pleasure had he in thus seeing it gradually passing away, that he never felt happy until it was all gone, and he knew that things had come to the worst. His only unpleasing anticipation, while his money was thus taking its flight, was, that, when he had lost it all, he should not know how to manage with the trusty friends who shared his prosperity. They, however, relieved him of his apprehensions on that score, by kindly withdrawing from him just at the crisis. Free from the restraints of friendship and property, and, truth requires me to add, free also from care, my father journeyed up to town, and, as the event showed, proved himself to be a greater adept at making money than he had been at spending it. Very fortunate, indeed, was it for him that his talent did lie in this direction. Returning to business, he entered upon it the second time with all the gusto which he had felt when previously occupied in it during his apprenticeship, and, fortunately succeeding in engaging himself with his former master, he began again to enjoy life. Eh! say some of you, enjoy weighing, and measuring, and so forth? Now, I do not pretend to account for the dissimilarity of persons' tastes, but I repeat the assertion he enjoyed life.

And let no one conclude from this that he was altogether destitute of taste, sense, and knowledge. He had received a moderately good education for his day, and, besides reading a good deal for that period, in which books were scarcely so cheap, numerous, and common as they now are, he was accustomed to gain information by observation and conversation; so that, considering the disadvantages under which our fathers in his station of life laboured, I have often been surprised to find how extensive and accurate was his acquaintance with both books and men.

To return to the story, my father, having again taken his place at the counter and in the family of his former master, conducted himself with so strict propriety, and

displayed so much diligence, that he won the entire regard of his employer, and doubtless might have retained it, but that the same qualities which had gained this for him also established him in the affections of the old gentleman's only daughter. Now, whether her brother-fearing op position to his own interest in his father's favour and property-instigated him to oppose the union of his daughter and my father, or not, I know not; the old man, however, set his face against the match, and at last gave a reluctant consent to it, with the assurance that his consent was all he intended to give. Noways daunted by the ungenial aspect of the family horizon, my father obtained the aid of a friend, and, with funds borrowed by his assistance, opened a small shop, and very shortly installed my mother as the mistress of the mansion which I have already described. Her father afterwards in some good measure redeemed his standing in their estimation, by setting them clear of all debt, and enabling them to make a fair start.

The world went well with the young couple. Quiet and industrious, business prospered. A son and three daughters were born to them. My brother had died, and my sisters were growing good big girls, when I was ushered into life. My father was a shrewd, good-tempered man, of fifty; well to do in the world, and satisfied with things in general and his own business in particular; my mother a few years younger, kind—but I must tell you more about her another time; my sisters ranging from twelve to sixteen years old, when my recollections of life begin to assume a definite shape; I being, at the time of which I write, some three or four years of age.

Well I remember the little back-room, which then appeared so snug and cheerful, when my father, mother, sisters, and I, drew round the fire at night: my father to read the paper until he dozed off into a nap, mother always sewing, sisters at some half-fancy work or learning a lesson, and 1 running about teasing every creature in the room, from my drowsy parent, nodding in his armchair, to the old tortoiseshell cat, which changed her position many a time, until at length, wearied and disgusted by my pertinacious interruptions of her peace, she rose, gave one stretch and yawn, and descended in majestic dignity to the kitchen, leaving me to address my attentions to my sisters or mother, or to follow her retreat, and prosecute my annoyances below-stairs; a course which I very seldom adopted, not having courage to venture down the dark stairs alone, and being too brave to request the company and protection of my sisters. Then, in the daytime, I used to find my way into the shop, where, of course, I was a special favourite with the young men, who vied with each other and with my father in showing every imaginable regard for me. One sore grievance existed, which was, that never and on no account was I permitted to pass the threshold of the shop, and mingle with the crowd outside. Very frequently I was allowed to go outside the counters, and peep through the door at the bustling throng, to look at the range of shop-windows on the other side filled with goods in my estimation comparable for variety and splendour only with the gorgeous articles enumerated in the inventory of the materials and contents of Solomon's Temple. In vain was I told of little boys carried away, robbed, stripped, and cruelly handled, set to beg or to work, and never heard of again. Quite idle tales to me were all those narratives of adventurous children trampled under foot or run over by vehicles; I would have risked everything, but my father would risk nothing, and I had to submit. But soon my release came. I had been learning easy lessons at home from my sisters, and I fear without making great proficiency; which indeed was very natural, seeing that it was entirely at my option whether I learned anything, and how much; and commonly my consent to an hour's instruction or the reception of a single lesson was purchased by presents (or bribes, if you will) of cakes and fruit.

This system of education resulted in an inseparable connection in my mind of learning and sickness; for, as every taste of the fruit of the tree of knowledge was accompanied

by a feast on more material and less wholesome fruit, any great accession of learning was invariably followed by a fit of sickness. It happened, in accordance with this plan, that my sisters, stimulated, I believe, by the loud complaints of my father that I was growing up disgracefully ignorant of the rudiments of arithmetic, having resolved to make me learn, mark, and understand the multiplication-table, acquainted me with their determination, and requested my concurrence. Of course, having been so thoroughly spoiled, I was master, and it was therefore highly prudent of them to engage my co-operation. Not to make myself too accessible or cheap, however, I affected an utter ignorance even of the use of figures, and insisted on being considered unacquainted with the meaning of the propositions in the first column of the said table. 'Once one is ?' I was quite puzzled. Come, come, Tommy. Once one is- ? ' Somewhat propitiated by my sister's allowing me to pass for a greater dunce than I really was, I replied, seemingly after much deliberation, 'Three.' 'Oh, Tommy, Tommy, you surely know better than that.' 'What will you give me if I will learn all the once one is ' for you?' 'A kiss.' 'What else?' 'A nice apple.' The bargain was struck, and, pretending to study the calculation very deeply for a few minutes, I repeated the whole lesson very correctly, with the exception of insisting on it, that once seven was eight; which disputed point, if my recollection serves me right, having been unanimously decided in favour of my sister, I finally consoled myself with the apple. The time for taking my second lesson in the science of numbers having arrived, I at once stipulated that my price for the second table-viz., 'twice one is '-was two apples, nor would I bate a single pip of my charge, insisting, moreover, on an instalment of one apple being paid before commencing the task. I proposed, indeed, to come to an arrangement to learn only half the table, if they liked, for which I should expect one apple. There was nothing for them but submission. I learned the lesson, and got two apples.

My demand rose with the difficulty of the work I was called on to perform; and, without more fully tracing a tedious and vexatious process, suffice it to say, I advanced them an apple each lesson, and, at the close of this course of tuition, received twelve apples, and many thanks and kisses for my goodness in learning it, for the last lesson. Most unfortunately for me, I obtained these apples just before dinner, and, being rather hungry, dined off them at once, which issued in my all but departing this life in a few days, and in the disclosure to my father of the terms of my home education; and this resulted in his immedi ately determining to send me to a school where, I understood, a widely different course of training was pursued. When first informed of my father's intention, I positively declined being made a party to any such arrangement as was contemplated. But my objections, I speedily found, were destined to be overruled, and so, making a virtue of necessity, I gave in a sort of semi-reluctant acquiescence with the will of my parents. I may confess to you, though, kind reader, that my consent was brought about mainly from a hint from my sister, that I should thus have an opportunity of getting out into the street to see the shops.

To school, then, I went, and made the acquaintance of Dame Tinkerton, into whose ill graces I at once introduced myself, by refusing to shake hands with her, and say that she was a very nice old lady, and that I loved her very much; all which proofs of our good understanding I resolutely declined to furnish. Furthermore, upon her assuming the aggressive, and uttering a threat or two, I retaliated by smacking her on the face with all my strength, and roaring out with might and main, in consequence of having struck my hand against her ironrimmed spectacles. My mother, seeing how matters were likely to issue, apologised to the dame for all the disturbance, and said she feared she could not send me to her. Encouraged by my success in the rencounter, and the assurance that I was not to be placed under Mrs Tinkerton's control, I waxed valiant, and absolutely refused to shake

hands with her on our departure, in token of reconciliation; and the old lady, resenting this very highly, and asking my reason for thus disliking her, I at once most candidly gave her the true, though not very complimentary, explanation, that she was like the Witch of Endor, a picture of whom formed part of my collection.

My mother was a very kind, but sensible and firm spirited woman. She never struck me nor ever spoke a harsh word to me in her life, but she exercised a stronger and more beneficial influence over me than any one else. On this occasion, she reasoned so forcibly and judiciously with me, when we returned home, on the impropriety of my behaviour, that I told her I was very sorry, and consented to go back with her to Mrs Tinkerton's, taking her a little present, and confessing my grief at having ill-used her. All this we carried into effect; and I really was quite sincere in hoping I had not hurt her very much, and that she would forgive me. I found afterwards that she was a good enough sort of old body by nature, but had a theory that, in order to her managing children with any degree of satisfaction, it was necessary to inspire them at the very commencement with a dread of her authority and power. Her signal failure in my case may have proved salutary to her.

I had secured a promise from my mother that my reconciliation to Mrs Tinkerton should not be followed by my being sent to school to her; and the propriety of this was so obvious, that my mother at once consented to commit me to the care of another teacher. I went quite peaceably to the next school, my mother, as before, accompanying me. We were shown into the small apart ment, which served for a schoolroom by day and a parlour in the evening, and a very young and ladylike person received us. Her pale, pale face contrasted so strongly with the deep mourning she wore, and her raven hair, lying so flat beneath her widow's cap, gave her altogether such a mournful aspect, that, young as I was, and ignorant of those conventional modes of dress so well understood by those of riper years, I gazed on her with a feeling of deep sadness. And yet I felt a tender affection for her. She took me on her knee so kindly, patted me on the head, and spoke so softly to me, asking me if I would have her for a sister, and be always a good boy, and learn my lessons to please her, that I could not but love her. And then she spoke so gratefully and confidingly to my mother, and talked so hopefully of the future, and her expectation of providing for herself and a little boy sleeping in his cot by her side, that, although I scarcely understood their conversation, and was affected more perhaps by the tones of her voice than by what she said, when a tear stole down her cheek, I could restrain myself no longer, but burst into tears and sobbed aloud,

I went to school, and, under her kind tuition, was making satisfactory progress, when one morning, about a year after my first visit to her, my mother told me poor Mrs Hayworth was not well, and could not hear us our lessons that day; and thus a week or two passed away in suspense, and then one day my mother told me she was going to take me to see her, and that I must make no noise, for she was very poorly. And when we got there, my mother, who had been to see her many times before, tried to cheer her; but she shook her head, and sighed. And while they spoke in whispers, and I could not understand them, I felt sure that I should never see her again; and when she kissed me, and told me how pleased she was to hear that I had been a good boy since she had seen me before, again I wept, and was so much distressed, that my mother immediately took me home. Once again, one morning my sister took me up-stairs to my bedroom, and asked me to sit down with her at the window; and in a few minutes a funeral procession passed by, and she told me that dear Mrs Hayworth, who was so fond of me, and taught me my lessons so kindly, would never teach me again, for God had taken her away to heaven; and again I burst into tears.

If day reveals the earth's refreshing green,
Through night's dark glass the starry skies are seen.

THE AGRICULTURE OF THE BIBLE.

NO. III.-THE IMPLEMENTS OF TILLAGE.

An opinion is often expressed that the first implement of tillage was simply a strong limb of a tree with a projecting branch. This is mere conjecture, and seems opposed to evidence. Adam was the first cultivator of the soil; he was put into the Garden of Eden, to dress it and to keep it; and he had higher skill and nobler work than any other gardener who ever broke ground. But he did not cultivate by spell or miracle; he did not achieve results without the use of corresponding means; and, since he performed nice tillage, he must also have possessed nice tools. If he did not obtain these in some intuitive or supernatural way, he must have speedily invented them. He was not set to make bricks without mortar-to prune trees without a pruning-knife-to do angel-like work with savage-like implements. The infinitely gracious Being who planted' the garden for him, and appointed him to dress it, doubtless furnished him, directly or indirectly, with all suitable appliances.

Adam dressed the garden, and Cain tilled the ground. The Hebrew word in both cases is the same, and has the sense of labouring or serving. Adam served the garden, and Cain served the field. Both laboriously tilled the soil; the former not with pain, indeed, but nevertheless with energy. They did not merely scratch the surface, or stir what was loose and friable; but they worked the land to a due depth, and reduced it to powder. They performed all the service, hard and searching, which was requisite to maintain fertility. May they not be presumed, therefore, to have had the same or similar implements? Adam, in becoming a sinner, did not forfeit his physical knowledge; and though, when driven from Eden, he may have left all his tools behind him, he yet carried with him ability to fabricate others of similar form, and probably out of similar material. He could scarcely fail to fashion all his agriculture in the field after the model of his horticul ture in the garden. The very stubbornness of the soil in resisting him, and the sweat, and fatigue, and exhaustion which now accompanied his labours upon it, would rouse him to recollect well, and to imitate closely, the implements of his Edenic tillage. And whatever good things were made for himself, were made also for his children, and would be preserved or imitated throughout many centuries.

But working in metals seems essential to the construeting of any good tillage implement; and this is commonly supposed to have been unknown till the time of Tubalcain, who belonged to the seventh generation after Adam. He is called, in the authorised version of the Bible, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.' But these words, even as they stand, do not say that he was the only instructor in the working of metals-still less that he was the inventor of the working of metals; and, if closely translated from the Hebrew original, they will read, he was a fabricator of every cutting instrument of brass and iron; and, if interpreted according to the light thrown upon them by some other passages, they may mean that he was the fabricator of every peculiarly sharp kind, or every very nice kind, of ploughing implement. In any case, the previous use of the metals seems distinctly implied. Tubalcain was not an inventor, but an improver. What he did was not to introduce metallic powers to the services of husbandry, but to give them finer forms and a keener edge.

Assume tillage implements at the time of the flood, and down to the time of the dispersion, to have been in a state of pretty high perfection, and they must soon after have become widely diversified in adaptation to different soils and climates. Some of the dispersed tribes settled on low, hot, thirsty plains, which derived all their fertility from the floodings of turbid river-water; and they must have been forced to make their implements light and toyishfit only for covering seeds and promoting after-culture, and expressly suited to avoid disturbance of the ground, or to make that disturbance a minimum. Others settled