judgment. There exists no evidence of a grinding or harsh government in his territories. I have only seen one or two beggars in Tuscany. Every one seems to have employment, and the populace are a much better looking race than those of Naples or Rome.

Picturesqueness of Italy.

As a whole, should not say that Italy was a picturesque country. For a great portion of the year, the power of the sun is such that the grass is withered, and the streams dried up. Hence nature presents a parched and thirsty aspect; and no sky, however lovely and serene, can compensate for the absence of green fields and running

brooks-the two most essential features of pastoral beauty.

Arrival at Venice.

We glided swiftly and silently along, till at length the gondola stopped, and we stepped straight into the hotel. Not a sound was heard in the street. There is something very striking, but not unmixed with melancholy, in the death-like stillness of an evening in Venice, more especially after visiting the other large cities of Italy. Naples, Rome, and Florence, are insuffersuner able from noise in the streets during the night. But here not a sound is heard save the splash of the oar, while the gondola steals smoothly along. It is "the rapture of repose," after coming from Florence. Looking out at my window this morning, I was struck with the novelty of the scene before me. At my feet was a large canal of sea-green water, about eighty yards across, and two sloops of seventy or eighty tons burden were moored at the door of the inn. Boats of various descriptions were plying their vocations of commerce, business, or pleasure. There is a row of lofty, though ricketty-looking houses on the opposite side of the canal. About 300 yards to the right, is the bridge of the Rialto, and to the left, a number of small canals are seen to diverge at right angles. Thermometer has fallen to 70°, and the sensation of cold is uncomfortable.

We have navigated a great part of the town. A small gondola, with one man, costs four francs a-day. He stands on the stern, working on the starboard side, the oar resting in the hollow of a prop raised about a foot and a half above the gondola. It is strange that the oar, being on one side, the boat does not yaw to the other. It is astonishing with what admirable precision the man steers, passing through the most crowded thoroughfares, and hardly ever coming into collision. It must be an absolute science, and as difficult as to drive four-in-hand in London. By means of a chart, it is quite easy to steer in any direc

tion. The Grand Canal describes the figure of the letter S, through the heart of the town, the greater part being towards the north. One would at first imagine that legs would be of little use in Venice, but this is not the case; for although the fronts of the houses go right down into the water, all have an exit from behind. In fact, one may traverse every inch of the city on foot, through narrow alleys beautifully paved, many of them not three feet in breadth, and crossing every now and then one of the numberless bridges. I never was in a town, the geography of which appeared so difficult to learn. One gets completely and the absence of prominent objects to bewildered by the great number of lanes,

direct the eye.

There never was a lad that was not fond of a dog, and there never was a young dog that was not fond of a lad. They seem to take to each other naturally. They are both fond of play, and of companionship; and nothing is more beautiful than to see a young dog, and two or three children, playing and scampering about together. It would be difficult to say which of the group enjoyed it most. The dog jumps and runs, doubles and capers, and plays at bo-peep, with as hearty and right goodwill, and as knowingly as the children themselves. A country lad has an admiration of all dogs-the stately Newfoundland, the graceful greyhound, the sober mastiff, or the cocktailed cur, he admires them all; but the most suitable dog for him, is a terrier or a spaniel. They are of a very companionable disposition. They are as fond of strolling through fields and woods as he is; and wherever they go, they are always hunting about in hedgebottoms, in copses, and through woods. The terrier is a lively alert fellow, that is particularly on the look out for just the things that the lad is curious about-rats, mice, stoats, weasels, rabbits, snakes, badgers, hedgehogs, and all that kind of subterranean and dingle-haunting creatures. The spaniel is as fond of hunting after rabbits, hares, and game of all kinds; and a water-spaniel is very amusing by his readiness to plunge into rivers and pools,

and fetch out sticks, or such things as are thrown in for the purpose. It is good for a lad to have a favourite dog. It is a ready friend that is always at hand, and always delighted to attend and oblige; and it is good for the young heart to have something of the sort to cultivate an attachment to, and defend. The faithful nature of a dog cannot fail to make a salutary impression on the mind of a well-dispositioned boy.

Country Children.

I pity scarcely any ragged, or cold, or solitary lad that I see in the country; the hardships of factory children are the hardships of their lives, but those of country children are but the pinchings of a short season now and then. They are not compelled to take their food as they stand before never-ceasing machines-fit images of eternal torture-in the hot and flocky atmosphere of a mill; they do not meet as strangers from the swarming dens of an overgrown town, but they know each other from their births; the sky is above their heads; the vital air from the hills and the seas rushes over their frames. They walk about at liberty, and go from moderate hours of labour to comfort and sound sleep. The children working in the brick-yards with bare legs, and bodies smeared with clay; or those in the hopgrounds of England, picking the hopflowers that nod luxuriantly from the tall poles, while other merry children are bringing them to them; the boy who sits for long hours, turning the great wheel of the rope-maker: I ask who can pity them? And where should we find the other country children? Why, in gardens and shrubberies, weeding beds of flowers and culinary herbs, and carrying away dead boughs and cuttings of trees for the gardeners. We should find them in summer, active in the hay and corn-field; keeping watch, armed with a rod of office tipped with a piece of scarlet cloth, over geese and turkeys with their broods. We should descry them gathering berries on the sunny heaths, and mushrooms from the old pastures. In the autumn, the acorns come pattering down from the oaks for them to gather; the chesnut and the triangular beech-nut lie plentifully in the woods; and the nuts exhibit their tawny clusters for their eager hands. They are gleaners abroad, and thrashers of their little harvests at home: helping their mothers to spread out a sheet on the green sward of the open common, and winnowing their little heap of grain in the free winds of heaven. Happy dogs are they all! Pity them! Phoh! I love them every one, and delight to remember them as making the

country pleasant by their presence. Hark! I seem even now to hear the bird-boys blowing their horns in the distant fields, or a score or two of these country urchins shouting after the harvest-home wagon.

The School-mistress.

In town or country, however pleasant it may be to be running about and playing, it is necessary still to go to school; and whether in town or country, school furnishes some of the most strong and marked days of a lad's life. I went to school as other little boys do, of course, and I dare say I thought it tedious enough to be poring over A. B. C., or learning to spell, when the sky was so blue, and the birds were singing so sweetly out of doors; but I remember nothing of this now: I only remember that my first teacher was Nanny Alldred, or, as it was there pronounced, Nanny Arred, an old woman who lived in a very little house just by our garden; wore a large mob-cap, a broad-striped bedgown, a large check apron, in which she used to go, when school was over, gathering sticks, and always came back with a great load, walking with her tall staff, and seeming so old and tired, that she could never get up the hill; yet every few days she went and came in the same manner. I remember too, that she took great quantities of Scotch snuff, and had three or four large cats, so that in old times she would certainly have been drowned for a witch. Going to School.

It is when the boy goes to school that he first begins to battle with the world-that he first feels in what a fairy land of love he has been fostered-that he first finds the necessity of putting on some of that rough outside of silent defiance, and of knitting up his heart into the strength of fortitude, that will be so needful for him all his life afterwards; that he is in reality brought by the shock of circumstances to see and to observe the variety of character, the variety of motive, the springs of life and action-it is to him the clear dawn of the actual world.

Ackworth School,

Differs remarkably from all other public schools, in the complete isolation of the children. They have ample and airy playgrounds, but are as perfectly separated from the world as if they were not in it. Owen, of Lanark, himself could desire nothing more secluded. As no vacations are allowed, the children are often three or four years there, and during that time see nobody but the members of the family, or occasional visiters; except in their monthly walk into the country, when they march two by two, under the care of the

teacher on duty, and can have no intercourse with any other children. It is impossible that evil communications, from without, can corrupt their good manners; and within, they are free from the distinctions of wealth and rank which torment the world, and excite many keen heartburnings in most public schools. There, not a sense of them exists. The utmost equality, the most cordial harmony, prevail. One child is distinguished from another only by the difference of person, of talents, disposition, and proficiency in learning. Happy estate! admirable foundation for a noble and erect carriage; for establishing in the mind a habit of valuing men, not by wealth and artificial rank, but by the everlasting distinctions of virtue and talent. Though the children are thrown entirely upon their own resources for amusement, these resources never fail. Besides ordinary plays, and means of play, there are their gardens; and a gardener and seedsman attend in the spring, for every boy to lay in his stock of seeds and plants, which are paid for by the superintendent, their general treasurer. Then there is a flagged walk of some two or three yards wide, and reaching from the centre building to the garden, a considerable distance; a charmed promenade, marking the separation betwixt the boys' and girls' green; where relatives of each sex may meet and walk together, and where only they can meet for conversation, being kept as completely apart, in the opposite wings of the building, as in two distinct establishments. It is beautiful to see brothers and sisters, and cousins (a relationship, I fancy, somewhat liberally ren. dered) there walking and talking, with linked arms, and words that never cease.

Periodicals.

BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY Is, this month, various and amusing, though, with the exception of the Editor's papers, the articles, more or less, lack vigour. Jack Sheppard makes excellent progress, and the scenes of the chapters before us are as rich and racy as any of their predecessors. "The Dining Houses in London" is better in design than execution; although the episodal notice of "the night houses" is good. Lover's "Handy Andy" is full of humour. "The Thames and its Tributaries" abounds with pleasant anecdote; and the residue we must leave, for the present, to their merits.

THE FOREIGN MONTHLY REVIEW, No. 1.[A first Number is scarcely a fair criterion of the capabilities of any Periodical; but,

as far as the present enables us to judge, we should say this new Review promises well. The main subjects of the papers are the Lyric Poets of Germany; Elementary Education in Holland and Belgium, of peculiar interest, at this moment; the Private Life of Napoleon, with new anecdotes; Society and Morals in the United States; Wieland; Augustus II., King of Poland; Dumas's Visit to Sinai; Lappenberg's History of England; and minor papers, among which the resumé of D'Urville's Expedition to the South, is remarkable for its concise yet complete version of this unprofitable affair. The pegs, whereon these papers are hung, are books published on the Continent, and, generally, within the present year. Here are a few anecdotes from the paper on Napoleon:]

There is something very original in the following anecdote of the King of Bavaria, who was much distinguished by Napoleon. He was one evening invited to a theatrical representation at the Tuileries, and a little before the end of the entertainment was received by the Emperor into his own box, which was a high mark of favour. On quitting the theatre, Napoleon took him by the arm, and, as the two monarchs walked on, a crowd eagerly gathered round them. The King's head being full of stories he had heard of the address of the Parisian pickpockets, who, by the help of a magnificent costume and borrowed name, gain access to these fétes at the palace, he became uneasy about his watch and snuff-box; and, when the crowd assembled, slipping his arm from that of the Emperor, he covered his seals with his hand, and observed with the utmost simplicity, "Pardon, sire, but it is as well to be cautious. I do not know everybody here, and no one knows who may be present."-"You are quite right," archly replied Napoleon, the fears of the King not having escaped him; "were I in your place, I should do the same at Münich."

The heart of Napoleon is well shewn in the account of the death of Marshal Lannes, at Essling, who, while sitting in a trench, was shot in both knees by a cannon ball. He was carried to the surgeon, and the Emperor, seeing that he was wounded, hastened to him, embraced and sobbed over him, exclaiming, "Lannes, my friend, dost thou not know me? It is I, it is the Emperor, it is Bonaparte, thy friend, Lannes; thou shalt be saved!" The Marshal opened his eyes, and with difficulty answered, "Sire, I could wish to live if I could still serve you and France; but, ere one hour elapses, you will have lost one of your best friends." Napoleon, on his knees, wept bitterly, and, half choked, turned to Massena, saying as Lannes was