learned with regret, that Simon was gathered to his fathers some years ago; and so was his son-in-law, whom I supposed to be the writer of the papers. I really felt as if I had lost an old and intimate friend, so familiar had my mind become with the idea of Simon, his poney-cart, and his preaching propensities. Thus left, as it were, heir of the portfolio, I have been tempted to employ the hours of a tedious convalescence in preparing a part of its contents for the public; hoping that its supreme fiat may confirm the opinion which I have formed, that they are highly calculated to be useful in that rank of life to which they more particularly address themselves.

Indeed, were all, high and low, rich and poor, to lay Simon's homely advices to heart, we should become a greater, a more contented, and a more prosperous, because we should be a moré virtuous, people than we can at present boast ourselves.

I have endeavoured to save private feelings as much as possible, by suppressing or altering the names of persons who figure in "Simon's Panorama;" though, no doubt, some there are who will recognise themselves, even under a feigned name.

I am well aware that Simon occasionally proses. But really, all that he says is dictated by such sound good sense and excellent principle, that I could not always persuade myself to curtail him, even though I did feel a little fretted at the length of his exhortations; and I comfort myself with this, that those who weary of them can pass them over; and those who follow them will never need to complain that they have wasted their time.

THE HEIR OF THE PORTFOLIO.

ANECDOTES

OF

THE LIVING AND OF THE DEAD.

MY EARLY DAYS.

-

My first recollections of life are those of misery. My mother lying on her bed sobbing in wild grief-the house dark and desolate my little sister and myself cold and hungry, and wailing, we knew not why; and no one caring for us. Perhaps all our distinct recollections of early life resemble pictures. They represent but one instant of time; and let us look back on them when we may, we always see the same people in exactly the same attitudes, the same dresses, the same expressions of face. At this moment, while I write, I see my mother stretched in an agony of grief upon the bed. I hear the convulsive fetches of her breath. I see the confused dreary apartment-the grate full of ashes, and no fire-an unwashed pan upon the hearth, with the lid half off, and covered with dusta beam of cold pale light glinting down the chimney upon bits of broken plaster and half-burnt sticks; and think I yet feel the cold, damp, sooty air blow on my cheek. This last impression is so strong that I have never since felt the same dismal blast but I thought it the very smell of desolation and despair.

The next picture that memory has presented is my mother sitting with her motionless wheel before her pale and motionless figure; her eyes gazing on vacancy, and the untwined thread suspended in ber fingers. I see the outer door open slowly and softly, and light from a little black cruizie, which hung near the fire, fall full on the benevolent countenance and the high white unwrinkled brow of Simon the travelling merchant. He stood there a moment, looking on my mother, who did not perceive him. I see him still in my mind's eye stepping gently and silently into the house, and hear my mother's wild scream when she at length observed him. He sat down by her, spoke to her kindly, and took my poor little alarmed and bewildered sister and myself on his knees, caressing us and giving us gingerbread from his great pocket. Few people are aware of the value of kindness of manner to a child, or how deeply a fond look, or word, or kiss, sinks into their little warm hearts in such situations as we then were. I was too young to understand what Simon or my mother were saying; but I remem ber her face turned upon us, her large dark eyes widely opened, and in a tone of agony uttering the words, "Wretched orphans." I did not know what that meant, but guessed it to be something very frightful. The slight and scattered glimpses of light thrown by my memory on a time so long past, only enable me to recollect, that from that night we were never again so unhappy. Simon saw my mother again, comforted her, and she began to work busily, and was once more occupied with the care of my sister and myself.

I now know that this dear mother was married, when a mere girl, to a

young sailor, and that he perished in a great naval engagement, leaving an orphan widow, under twenty years of age, with two infant orphans to support. Simon had been at a distance when the news of our misfortune arrived; but, on returning to his home, not far from ours, immediately came to pour the blessed balm of at once heavenly and earthly consolation into the wounded heart. He arranged plans with my mother for her future comfort and conduct, procured the arrears of my father's pay and prizemoney, and, through his vivid representations of our case to some of the neighbouring gentry, obtained a small pension for the brave young sailor's widow and orphans. I remember him arriving one sunny morning with a pick and spade over his shoulder, and a great bundle of willow slips under his arm, to put the little yard belonging to our lonely hut in order, and to mend its fence. He always took me along with him to all such pieces of work; taught me to be useful and careful; to weed and to water the new planted kail and willows, and the new sown turnips; to pick up all sticks, and stones, and litter; and to exert my almost infant strength and activity at once agreeably and usefully. He spoke to me continually; gave me encouragement and applause for all my little feats of ingenuity or agility, and, above all, for any traits of consideration or exertion of thought and reason that I chanced to display. My mother did not sit idle while another vas working for her. With great natural abilities, sound sense, and a true independent Scottish heart, joined to much docility, she soon roused herself from the apathy of despair into which she was sinking at the time Simon came to see her. She worked incessantly and usefully; and the worthy man, delighted to find his endeavours to serve her crowned with such success, redoubled his kindness and affection. He brought my sister a weaned calf, which he called her tocher. This she and I concluded was the name of the animal, and it never after got any other. This calf proved the source of wealth to the whole family, and set us completely above want.

After his return from every journey, Simon came to see us, and was ever the forerunner of joy and comfort. His very looks, his mere presence, was comfort. But, besides, he always found something in each to praise and approve. He had always something to show, or tell, or teach; and he set every thing to rights that was beyond our skill or strength. He taught me to plait and then prune the willow fence, and to make baskets of the prunings, -a most useful lesson, and easily learned. He also taught me another still easier and as useful, it was, never to leave litter of any kind at my heels, but to carry at once every sort of rubbish to its own proper place. Stones he heaped in one unoccupied corner, there to lie till they were needed. Weeds, sticks, stalks, and blades were all laid in another heap to decay, and afterwards to be used as manure. "Child," he said, "put nothing to waste; every thing on earth has its use. Only teach yourself betimes to keep every thing where it ought to be, and you will know where to find it; and there will be neither confusion, nor waste, nor time lost, breaking your bones tumbling over rubbish, or hunting for what is destroyed through want of order." My mother had brought us up in such perfect obedience, from the earliest hours of our existence, that contention and discontent were utterly unknown in the house. No scolding-no punishments; my sister and I had not an idea or a wish but to do instantly what we were desired. Thus we were easily taught; and I learned to read so early, and so gradually, and with so little trouble, that I scarcely remember when or how it was; but it is associated in my memory with my mother's love and caresses. And both my sister and I love reading. And I remember when a neighbour was wondering to see us reading of our own free will, because her own children never would read a word unless she thrashed them to it; my mother cried out to her, "Oh, woman! is that the way ye tak' to gar your bairns like their books? Could ye like your very meat or your sleep

yoursel', if ye never got them but wi' a threshing? Would ye like them, or them that threshed you?" "Weel I wot, no!" replied her visiter. But logic avails little in counteracting the habit of thrashing; and the good woman would probably go home and doubly thrash her children because I was fond of reading.

Another thing I cannot remember, that is, a time when I was unacquainted with the first principles of religion; I mean, that there is an allpowerful, unseen Being, who made whatever I saw on the earth and in the sky, and who is the Preserver of all who love and serve him. Him my mother taught my little sister and myself to think of at all times with the deepest reverence and love, as the Author of all our blessings. She pressed upon our infant hearts the necessity of remembering that this great Spirit was for ever present, though not seen by us, and to dread doing anything wrong, though no mortal eye was near us, because we were ever seen by Him, who knew not only all we did, but all we thought. We, night and morning, in a few simple words, addressed to Him our infant adorations; and in all our childish griefs and troubles, to him we habitually lifted up our little hearts and hands for help. Oh, I yet remember, on that day of my earliest wretchedness, when bewildered and terrified by my mother's grief, that I tried to pray for her and my father, then in his ocean grave!

It seems to me that I can look back on a very long period of time in which Simon was our active and never-failing friend. But can give no narrative of those years, even were the life of a herd-boy likely to afford subjects for narration. Simon provided me with books to read, when, with no companion but my dog, I was at my lonely occupation of herding cattle, sent out to graze among ill-fenced fields: and at night I attended with my sister a school, where we learned writing and arithmetic. The praises of my master awakened many ambitious feelings in my mind, and these might have led to much mischief, but Simon soon after took me as his servant to learn farm work; and in the intervals of his journeys, perhaps perceiving the aspirings of my heart, took occasion to tell me what had been his own destination in early life. His father, who had been all his days a pedler, had acquired so much money as to afford his son a good, and even a learned education, intending him, of course, for the church. Through all the preparatory schools, Simon passed with credit to himself, and, at eighteen years of age, was sent to college. There, though the expense of the various classes was very great in comparison with the country schools, it could and would have been borne without murmur or surprise, because it was expected; but even Simon's father, accustomed to buy and sell, and calculate, had not calculated on such an expense as had actually and unavoidably accumulated before the close of the season, when all came to be summed up. But that was not all. Simon always saw with his eyes and heard with his ears, and every sense pressed conviction on his heart, that, except in very particular circumstances, the learned professions are not for a poor man's son. Where the bent to any particular profession is very strong, and the capacity for acquiring the preliminary branches indisputable, who shall venture to oppose the powerful dictates of nature? Yet, even in this rare case, what father and mother would not dread for their son the long apprenticeship of privation, and temptation, and penury, and mortification, and toil! But, in all ordinary cases, merely because a poor man has been blessed with a son of such good talents as, by the help of reading, writing, and arithmetic, as an outset, would fit him for an apprentice or clerk in any of the respectable trades or occupations of life, is not satisfied with that, but becomes immediately possessed with the vain desire of making him a minister, he shows in the very wish that he is utterly ignorant of the course to be pursued, everystep of which would prove to him a step towards misery and ruin. a possession!" cried Simon, driving his spade deeper in the clod, and let

"It is

ting it stand there for a time, "I say it is nothing but a possession. It is the delusion of the enemy in the semblance of an angel of light to wile poor mortals to misery and ruin! What I have seen, in that one session at college, of human wretchedness! I might add, of vice, but that is best untold; poverty is ill enough without it! How many wretched lads did I there see! At first I shunned them, because I dreaded, as symbols of abomination, their filthy, unwashed, inky hands; their stained, torn, thread-bare college-gowns, covered with dirt and dust; their battered, rusty hats, their muddy shoes, their uncombed hair, matted and raggled like a muirland tup. All these filths filled me with shame, and turned my very stomach; for my own mother had brought me up in close intimacy with soap and water, in which, from my very infancy, I was plunged at least twice every day; for she often told me that dirt, indecency, and vice, were three cousins-german.

"Could I have wondered if the professors, or the young gentlemen about the college, had dreaded the contact of such fellows, when even I, one of their own rank, grued at them and blushed for them? Among these future doctors and ministers, however, I soon began to distinguish between those who wore the symbols of honest poverty alone, untainted with reckless vulgarity and dirt. Our pursuits and rank being the same, with many of these became acquainted; and that was the time when I learned what is suffered by lads, even of the highest talents, and unpolluted with a single vice, when thrust, by their own misguided ambition, or the deluding fondness and vanity of their parents, into situations of expense which their humble means are utterly unable to support. There it was I first knew some who had nearly finished their studies and their lives: - the body worn to a shadow,

the kind, noble heart sunk into despondency by want and wo,- and the bright intellect strained to the verge of insanity by over-exertions, surrounded by poverty, and anxiety, and starvation!" Simon's voice trembled with emotion as he spoke. He stood a minute silent, and then resumed his spade, with a cloud on his brow, very unlike the usual sun-bright expression which characterized his face. It was long before he spoke again, and when he did, he abruptly began the same subject, which, it appeared, he had mentally pursued. "That was my first and last season at college. I laboured hard made all the improvement I could; and, when the session was over, bade it, and every thought of being made a gentleman, farewell. I gratefully thanked my good father for what he had already done for me; but, by an account of what I had seen among my fellow-students, effectually cured him of the wish to make his son a minister.

"If every honest man were as easily persuaded, how much it would be for the happiness of himself and his family and the country at large. The Christian religion,- blessed be its Author! is designed for the poor as well as the rich; and it would not be easy to tell whether the rich or poor have most need of it to guide and support them through the cares and temptations belonging to each rank; but because the poorest have all the privileges of Christians as well as the richest, does that infer that they should become its teachers? Some indeed, are, from their childhood, stamped as it were by a superior turn of mind and talents, which shine out even in their persons and manners. Such will adorn any profession, but we do n't often see them, and it is not of those I speak. But what kind of ministers of the gospel can they make, who, with only ordinary talents, have been thumpit through the more needful drudge-work of the indispensable classes at school and college, so as to entitle them to a license to preach, and who look to the ministry for sorrow ha'et else than the road to the manse, the glebe, and the stipend! To obtain this, they will cringe to rich and to poor, flattering the evil passions of both. How it has gnawed my soul to see a man of this sort, utterly destitute of a gentleman's manners, or feelings, or accomplishments, merely because he had learned Greek and Latin, trans