vast industrial bastiles, when it is no longer conducive to their temporal advantage.

Let no one be blinded by the fact that there are factories at present in which good care is taken both of the education of the young, and in providing comfort for the aged and the infirm. The Established Church is still predominant in England, and not only is its direct influence beneficially felt by all those who belong to it, but its indirect is in no small degree participated by multitudes who are not numbered amongst its communion. This has hitherto served to infuse a spirit of Christian kindliness into our manufacturing system, by which, in many places, its evils are mitigated. But let that great institute be overthrown and trodden under foot, and the moloch of gain will develop itself in all its hideous dimensions and a future generation may have to learn that democratic ascendancy is yet compatible with grievous oppression, securing, neither at home nor abroad, the real ends of good government; and that a plethory of wealth is not prosperity.

Our space admonishes us that we must hasten to a close. Mr. Golovine is a Russian liberal of the worst French school. He has felt, and he understands, what it is to live under an autocracy. But he does not understand how much better it may be sometimes

"To bear the ills we have,

Than fly to others which we know not of:" and, above all things, he has yet to learn the evils of a rude and godless democracy. He resembles a man recently couched for a cataract, by whom, although the darkness has been removed, the experience has not as yet been acquired, by which the newly acquired faculty might be rendered really useful. The brilliant charlatanry of Thiers passes with him for profound political wisdom; and he would eagerly embrace a French alliance, in the hope of being aided in his projects for the overthrow of the despotism against which he inveighs, without the slightest notion that in so doing he might be only preparing the way for the entrance of seven worse spirits into his native country, so that its last end might be worse than its first."

Before he writes again we would venture earnestly to recommend to him, to study attentively the history and the working of the British constitution.

In this, Guizot will be a safer

guide than Thiers; and he will there see the most perfect model of constitutional liberty that has ever yet been realized. Let him hold this up to the admiration of his yet unexecuted or unexpatriated brother liberals in Russia, and advise them, in all their projects of reform, to keep it steadily in view. It is a ripened product, the perfection of which they should not all at once expect to attain; and while it inspires them with a detestation of tyranny, it will impress upon them a salutary dread of frantic and headlong revolution. They will learn to wait upon events, rather than anticipate them by emeuts, which can only result in ruin to themselves; and to act upon the principle, that liberal institutes are much more likely to arise out of a people duly prepared for them, than to continue when conferred without that knowledge of their fitness on the part of those for whom they are intended, which could alone render their acquisition desirable.

Of the emperor Nicholas our author has written nothing which dis turbs the notion we had before entertained, and which has been formed from all that we could learn from competent and impartial observers. He is convinced that his absolutism is essential to the good of his people; and he therefore rules with a high hand. The vigour of his administration is felt in all the departments of his mighty empire; and, as has been already observed, much has been already done to impose some check upon the system of bribery and corruption by which Russian functionaries of every description, from the highest to the lowest, had been tainted. In his domestic relations, Nicholas is amiable and engaging. He is a kind husband, an affectionate father, and as much beloved by his family, as he is idolized by his people. Happy are we that we do not live under an absolute ruler, and that we are as yet spared the evils of that opposite extreme in government, which arises from the caprices of a licentious multitude, and which is only despotism under another name. But if Russia must have an autocrat, she could scarcely have a better than the sovereign to whom the vast bulk of her population rejoice at present to tender an unlimited allegiance, and who is regarded by them as the father of his people.

HAVING satisfied herself that the skeleton was a human one, she cautiously put back the earth, and covered it up with the green sward, as graves usually are covered, and in such a way that there should exist, from the disturbed appearance of the place, as little risk as possible of discovery. This being settled, she returned with the herbs, and laying aside the spade, from off which she had previously rubbed the red earth, so as to prevent any particular observation, she sat down, and locking her fingers into each other, swayed her body backwards and forwards in silence, as a female does in Ireland when under the influence of deep and absorbing sorrow, whilst from time to time she fixed her eyes on the prophet, and sighed deeply.

"I thought," said he, "I sent you for the dandelion-where is it?"

"Oh," she replied, unrolling it from the corner of her apron, "here it is I forgot it-ay, I forgot it-and no wondher-oh, no wondher indeed! -Providence! You may blasphayme Providence as much as you like; but he'll take his own out o' you yet; an' indeed it's comin' to that-it is, Donnel, an' you'll find it so."

"

He

The man had just taken the herbs into his hand, and was about to shred them into small leaves for the poultice, when she uttered the last words. turned his eyes upon her; and in an instant that terrible scowl for which he was so remarkable when in a state of passion, gave its deep and deadly darkness to his already disfigured visage. His eyes blazed, and one half of his face became ghastly with rage.

"What do you mane ?" he asked "what does she mane, Sarah? I tell you, wanst for all, you must give up ringin' Providence into my ears, unless you wish to bring my hand upon you, as you often did-mark that!"

"Your ears," she replied, looking

at him calmly, and without seeming to regard his threat; "oh, I only wish I could ring the fear of Providence into your heart-I wish I could; but I'll do for yourself what you often pretend to do for others—I'll give you warnin'. I tell you now that Providence himself is on your track-that his judgment's hangin' over you-and that it'll fall upon you before long ;this is my prophecy, and a black one you'll soon find it.'

That Nelly had been always a woman of some good-nature, with gleams of feeling and humanity appearing in a character otherwise apathetic, hard, and dark, M'Gowan well knew; but that she was capable of bearding him in one of his worst and most ferocious moods, was a circumstance which amazed and absolutely overcame him. Whether it was the novelty or the moral elevation of the position she so unexpectedly assumed, or some lurking conviction within himself which echoed back the truth of her language, it is difficult to say. Be that, however, as it might, he absolutely quailed before her, and instead of giving way to headlong violence or outrage, he sat down, and merely looked on her in silence and amazement.

Sarah certainly thought he was unnecessarily tame on the occasion, and that Nelly's prophecy ought not to have been listened to in silence. The utter absence of all fear, however, on the part of the elder female, joined to the extraordinary union of determination and indifference with which she spoke, had something morally impressive in it; and Sarah, who felt, besides, that there seemed a kind of mystery in the words of the denunciation, resolved to let the matter rest between them, at least for the pre

sent.

A silence of some time now ensued, during which she looked from the one to the other with an aspect of uncer

To this sally neither replied, nor seemed disposed to reply.

“Here,” added Sarah, handing her stepmother a cloth, "remimber you have to go to Darby Skinadre's for meal. I'd go myself, an' save you the journey, but that I'm afraid you might fall in love wid one another in my absence. Be off now, you ould stepdivle, an' get the meal; or if you're not able to go, I will."

After a lapse of a few minutes, the woman rose, and taking the cloth, deliberately folded it up, and asked him for money to purchase the meal she

wanted.

"Here," said he, handing her a written paper, "give him that, an' it will do as well as money. He expects Master Dick's interest for Dalton's farm, an' I'll engage he'll attend to that."

She received the paper, and looking at it, said

"I hope this is none of the villany I suspect."

"Be off," he replied; "get what you want, and that's all you have to do."

"What's come over you?" asked Sarah of her father, after the other had gone. "Did you get afeard of

her?"

any rate, never be cowed by a woman Lie down, an' I'll go over a while to Tom Cassidy's. But first, I had betther make the poultice for your face, to take down that ugly swellin'."

Having made and applied the poultice, she went off, light-hearted as a lark, leaving her worthy father to seek some rest if he could.

She had no sooner disappeared, than the prophet, having closed and bolted the door, walked backwards and forwards in a moody and unsettled man

ner.

"What," he exclaimed to himself, "can be the matther with that woman, that made her look at me in sich a way while agone? I could not mistake her eye. She surely knows more than I thought, or she would not fix her eye into mine as she did. Could there be any thing in that dhrame about Dalton an' my coffin? Hut! that's nonsense. Many a dhrame I had that went for nothing. The only thing she could stumble on is the Box, an' I don't think she would be likely to find that out, unless she went to throw down the house; but anyhow its' no harm to thry."

He immediately mounted the old table, and, stretching up, searched the crevice in the wall where it had been, but, we need not add, in vain. He then came down again, in a state of dreadful alarm, and made a general search for it in every hole and corner visible, after which his agitation became wild and excessive.

"She has got it!" he exclaimed"she has stumbled on it, aided by the devil-an' may she soon be in his clutches!—and it the only thing I'm afeard of! But then," he added, pausing, and getting somewhat cool, "does she know how it might be brought against me, or who owned it? I don't think she does; but still, where can it be, and what could she mane by Providence trackin' me out?-an' why did she look as if she knew something? Then that dhrame—I can't get it out o' my head this whole day-and the terrible one I had last night, too! But that last is aisily accounted for. As it is, I must only wait an' watch her; and if I find she can be dangerous, why-it'ill be worse for her-that's all." He then threw himself on the wretched bed, and, despite of his tumultuous reflections, soon fell asleep.

THERE is to be found in Ireland, and, we presume, in all other countries, a class of hardened wretches, who look forward to a period of dearth as to one of great gain and advantage, and who contrive, by exercising the most heartless and diabolical principles, to make the sickness, famine, and general desolation which scourge their fellow-creatures so many sources of successful extortion and rapacity, and consequently of gain to themselves. These are Country Misers or Money-lenders, who are remarkable for keeping meal until the arrival of what is termed a hard year, or a dear summer, when they sell it out at enormous or usurious prices, and who, at all times, and under all circumstances, dispose of it only at terms dictated by their own griping spirit, and the crying necessity of the unhappy purchasers.

The houses and places of such persons are always remarkable for a character in their owners of hard and severe saving, which at a first glance has the appearance of that rare virtue in our country, called frugality-a virtue which, upon a closer inspection, is found to be nothing with them but selfishness, sharpened up into the most unscrupulous avarice and penury.

About half a mile from the residence of the Sullivans, lived a remarkable man of this class, named Darby Skinadre. In appearance he was lank and sallow, with a long, thin, parchedlooking face, and a miserable crop of yellow beard, which no one could pronounce as any thing else than "a dead failure;" added to this were two piercing ferret eyes, always sore and fiery, and with a tear standing in each, or trickling down his fleshless cheeks; so that, to persons disposed to judge only by appearances, he looked very like a man in a state of perpetual repentance for his transgressions, or, what was still farther from the truth, who felt a most Christian sympathy with the distresses of the poor. In his house, and about it, there was much, no doubt, to be commended, for there was much to mark the habits of the saving man. Every thing was neat and clean, not so much from any innate love of neatness and cleanliness, as because

these qualities were economical in themselves. His ploughs and farming implements were all snugly laid up, and covered, lest they might be injured by exposure to the weather; and his house was filled with large chests and wooden hogsheads, trampled hard with oatmeal, which, as they were never opened unless during a time of famine, had their joints and crevices festooned by innumerable mealy-looking cobwebs, which description of ornament extended to the dresser itself, where they might be seen upon most of the coldlooking shelves, and those neglected utensils, that in other families are mostly used for food. His haggard was also remarkable for having in it, throughout all the year, a remaining stack or two of oats or wheat, or perhaps one or two large ricks of hay, tanned by the sun of two or three summers into a tawny hue-each or all kept in the hope of a failure and a famine.

In a room from the kitchen, he had a beam, a pair of scales, and a set of weights, all of which would have been vastly improved by a visit from the lordmayor, had our meal-monger lived under the jurisdiction of that civie gentleman. He was seldom known to use metal weights when disposing of his property; in lieu of these he always used round stones, which, upon the principle of the Scottish proverb, that "many a little makes a muckle," he must have found a very beneficial mode of transacting busi

ness.

If any thing could add to the iniquity of his principles, as a plausible but most unscrupulous cheat, it was the hypocritical prostitution of the sacred name and character of religion to his own fraudulent impositions upon the poor and the distressed. Outwardly, and to the eye of men, he was proverbially strict and scrupulous in the observation of its sanctions, but outrageously severe and unsparing upon all who appeared to be influenced either by a negligent or worldly spirit, or who omitted the least tittle of its forms. Religion and its duties, therefore, were perpetually in his mouth, but never with such apparent zeal and sincerity as when enforcing his most

heartless and hypocritical exactions upon the honest and struggling creatures whom necessity or neglect had driven into his meshes.

Such was Darby Skinadre; and certain we are that the truth of the likeness we have given of him will be at once recognised by our readers as that of the roguish hypocrite, whose rapacity is the standing curse of half the villages of the country, especially during seasons of distress, or failure of crops.

Skinadre, on the day we write of, was reaping a rich harvest from the miseries of the unhappy people. In a lower room of his house, to the right of the kitchen as you entered it, he stood over his scales, weighing out with a dishonest and parsimonious hand, the scanty pittance which poverty enabled the wretched creatures to purchase from him; and in order to give them a favourable impression of his piety, and consequently of his justice, he had placed against the wall a delf crucifix, with a semicircular receptacle at the bottom of it for holding holy water. This was as much as to say "how could I cheat you with the image of our Blessed Redeemer before my eyes to remind me of my duty, and to teach me, as he did, to love my fellow-creatures ?" And with many of the simple people, he actually succeeded in making the impression he wished; for they could not conceive it possible, that any principle, however rapacious, could drive a man to the practice of such sacrilegious impos

ture.

There stood Skinadre, like the very Genius of Famine, surrounded by distress, raggedness, feeble hunger, and tottering disease, in all the various aspects of pitiable suffering, hopeless desolation, and that agony of the heart which impresses wildness upon the pale cheek, makes the eye at once dull and eager, parches the mouth, and gives to the voice of misery tones that are hoarse and hollow. There he stood, striving to blend consolation with deceit, and in the name of religion and charity subjecting the helpless wretches to fraud and extortion. Around him was misery, multiplied into all her most appalling shapes. Fathers of families were there, who could read in each other's faces too truly, the gloom and anguish that darkened the

brow and wrung the heart. The strong man, who had been not long before a comfortable farmer, now stood dejected and apparently brokendown, shorn of his strength, without a trace of either hope or spirit; so wofully shrunk away too, from his superfluous apparel, that the spectators actually wondered to think that this was the large man, of such powerful frame, whose feats of strength had so often heretofore filled them with amazement. But, alas! what will not sickness and hunger do!

There too was the aged man-the grandsire himself-bent with a double weight of years and sorrow-without food until that late hour; forgetting the old pride that never stooped before, and now coming with the last feeble argument, to remind the usurer that he and his father had been schoolfellows and friends, and that although he had refused to credit his son and afterwards his daughter-in-law, still, for the sake of old times, and of those who were now no more, he hoped he would not refuse to his grey hairs and tears, and for the sake of the living God besides, that which would keep life in his son, and his daughterin-law, and his famishing grand-children, who had not a morsel to put in their mouths, nor the means of procuring it on earth-if he failed them.

And there was the widower, on behalf of his motherless children, coming with his worn and desolate look of sorrow, almost thankful to God that his Kathleen was not permitted to witness the many-shaped miseries of this woful year; and yet experiencing the sharp and bitter reflection, that now, in all their trials-in his poor children's want and sickness-in their moanings by day and their cries for her by night, they have not the soft affection of her voice nor the tender touch of her hand to soothe their pain -nor has he that smile, which was ever his, to solace him now, nor that faithful heart to soothe him with its affection, or to cast its sweetness into the bitter cup of his affliction. Alas! no; he knows that that heart will beat for him and them no more; that that eye of love will never smile upon them again; and so he feels the agony of her loss superadded to all his other sufferings, and in this state he approaches the merciless usurer.