shadowed forth greater promises than performances; but the wheel of fortune will make its revolution in ordinary course."

"Idiotic-lost," replied Thomas Joplin. "No wonder people say he is an aberrated spirit."

"He seems worn and out of sorts," said James William Gilbart. "He was once a man of mark in City circles, but Time has laid a heavy hand upon him."

John Diston Powles was on his way to the London Dock Company, and after calling in there was lost in the mazes of the Grocers' Hall Gardens.

Daylight being almost visible, James William Gilbart and Thomas Joplin, after again inspecting the exterior of the Bank of England, soon sought their respective funereal abodes.

As I neared the end of the Exchange, where the statue of George Peabody is placed, a lurid light shone over the head and bust of that great man. The lower part of his person was enveloped in darkness, though it was near daybreak; and the wind whistled round the corners of the site of the old church, long since demolished, where the figure is seated in a large easy chair. The bronze, though dull and dark, gradually assumed a preternatural brightness; and standing before it, the more closely I inspected it, the more natural became the features, and at length the eyes presented their ordinary glistening intelligence. The whole figure shortly exhibited symptoms of restlessness, and after a sneeze and a cough, the statue became imbued with apparent vitality, left its chair, and walked towards me. There was George Peabody in ordinary costume, as I had known him years since, apparently wishing to enter into conversation. Although a number of individuals more important than myself were moving about-all of course in the spirit-he evidently desired to discard them, steadily approaching the spot where I stood.

Just then a rich old miser, well known in the purlieus of Cornhill as Whistling Jemmy, shuffled past us as if wishing to impede our meeting; and shuffling and whistling, and looking cold and uncom fortable out of his bleared grey eyes, went on towards Bartholomew Lane, leaning on his stick, wheezing out his low melancholy plaint, greatly to the annoyance of all who came in contact with him. But still he whistled and shuffled, much to his own satisfaction, as he was on a visit of inspection to his large improving properties, with the view, as was his custom during life, to increase his rent roll.

George Peabody, attired as he was in blue body coat, black vest, and black pantaloons, with black gloves covering gouty hands, and pannus corium shoes covering gouty feet, approached. "What

miserable sinner is that ?" he inquired, as the wheezing, whistling miser made his way.

"That is Whistling Jemmy," I replied; "the miser who has made all his money by purchasing old and dilapidated buildings, and after improving them, seeking every year to enforce higher rentals. Some pursue one course in heaping up riches, some another. But it all ends in one result-they cannot take them with them."

"Ah!" answered the great millionaire, "the common lot. If I made my money by large adventures in neglected American securities, Peruvian bonds, and Hudson Bay shares, he has made his through the late enormous rise in property and rentals, which, however it may be occasionally interfered with by panic, will never be finally arrested. But, friend, what do you think of the growth of morality among ourselves and neighbours during the last ten or twelve years?"

I shook my head mournfully, and said I feared I could not report any improvement. The race for riches was stronger than ever; extravagant expenditure was more freely encouraged than it was ten years ago; and the means used to obtain money were less scrupulous than formerly.

Whistling Jemmy shuffled back, and, whistling and wheezing, was rude enough to draw close and interrupt our conversation.

Pulling up, leaning on his stick, he humped his crooked back, and glaring out of his bleared, bloodshot eyes at the millionaire, he said—" And so you are the great Mr. Peabody. I have long wished to meet you face to face; but while you were perched up there (pointing to the elevated chair) I have not had a reasonable chance. Whiffle, whiffle, whiffle. Do you think the people respect you for leaving that great mass of money to the nation-to the poor of London? I think not. Some say it was vanity on your part. Whiffle, whiffle, whiffle. You may have good trustees; your funds may be well employed and distributed honestly; but save and except your statue and your name, little will be thought of you a hundred years hence. Whiffle, whiffle, whiffle."

I could see from the glowing bronze cheeks of George Peabody that he was becoming indignant, and that he could hardly resist kicking the miser. He at length replied, "I acted as my conscience dictated; if I have erred, I have at least erred in the right direction. But you, you miserable sinner, you have heaped up wealth without exercising the least charity, leaving your property to become the prey of Chancery."

"Oh, oh!" rejoined Whistling Jemmy; "what fun. Whiffle, whiffle, whiffle. Precisely what I wanted."

Just then came forward Toothpowder Brown. The gay, débonnaire Frenchman-Anglicised by his long residence in this country-drew from his little black bag two or three boxes of the real Pennsylvanian composition and half a dozen tooth brushes. "Buy der poudre? any tooth brushes? Vy you quarrel over your vealth? I have vorked, struggled, and fought, but have saved no riches. I have lived beyond the allotted span-threescore and ten-and have died in a hole comme un rat, and dere is no one, tank God, to dispute my vill."

Whistling Jemmy was evidently afraid of old Toothpowder Brown, for he shuffled off, striking a strong diapason note, and ejaculating— "Dodger spendthrift-ne'er-do-well."

Toothpowder Brown shook up his little black bag containing the Pennsylvanian mixture and the tooth brushes, and with light elastic step soon distanced the shambling, shuffling miser.

Bidding George Peabody adieu, after seeing him once more in his elevated position, I traced my course in another direction.

Dancing in wild delirium before the portals of the Stock Exchange, I noticed the dark phantoms of many well-intentioned individuals who were compelled to succumb in the "dissolving views in figures" in July and August, 1870, and who never can hope to rise again. They, nevertheless, like Sisyphus with the rolling stone, desire to retrieve their position, though there is not the remotest chance of their ever doing so.

It was four o'clock before I had terminated my rounds, as the watch of the night would say, and before my host of worthies, great and small, had returned to their chill, earthy tenements. Each took his way gravely and silently to his respective locality, and one after one, as I lost sight of them, the long lines down Cheapside, Lombard Street, Cornhill, Lothbury, Throgmorton Street, and Threadneedle Street again became a dreary waste of banking-houses, merchants' establishments, and shops waiting for the return of every-day life, to bring with it the customary amount of animation and anxiety.

As for myself, returning home quietly on foot, thoughtfully pondering over the sights I had witnessed and the dialogues I had heard, my mind and senses were somewhat relieved by the clean appearance of and the fresh fragrance from the country wains and carts laden with the brightest of bright flowers, the greenest of green cabbages, the whitest of white turnips, the reddest of red beets, and

the yellowest of yellow carrots, on their road to Spitalfields, the Borough, and Newgate Markets. My halfway house I made at the early breakfast establishment near the outside porch of Shoreditch Church, where I regaled myself with a thick hunk of new bread obtained from a neighbouring baker, and a pint of sweet warm milk ladled out in true Cockney fashion from the polished tin cans of Laycock's Dairy. Turning round, my eyes alighted on an inscription on a tomb close at hand-"Dr. Gardner's last and best bedroom." 66 Perhaps," said I to myself, "the eccentric doctor was not far wrong in thus curtly describing the character of his final restingplace."

D. MORIER EVANS.

TENNYSON AND BROWNING.

HILE Europe is but just emerging from one of the most terrible wars that the world's history has to chronicle, we Britons, valuing peace as a possession whose worth we have proved, have still continued in our path of calm though speedy progress-in thought and practice, in science and art, by land and sea, at home and abroad-in spite of the harmless contempt of Europe and the indignant protests of a small but noisy section of our fellow-countrymen.

Now peace makes rich, and riches encourage Art, whilst Art, thus encouraged, in her turn reflects in her every accent, expression, and motion the serene influences that control her, as surely as her voice, and form, and features would respond, were war upon us, to all the wild exultations or despairs of victory or defeat.

This is, after all, but an old thought clothed in new words, but its repetition leads us more fully to realise what is the present mission amongst us of Poetry-alike the most divine and the most human of the daughters of Art. Art, whom we may justly call the idealisation of truth, be truth's teachings sweet or harsh, terrible or tender, as they may.

What, then, are the poetic art-truths that we recognise as most representative of the age in which we live?

One swift retrospective glance over the past half century is sufficient to show us that its peaceful course has been throughout a period of growth-not one of stagnation or decay.

Morally and socially we have been gainers-our intellectualism is more wide-spread, if less individually solid; literature has become an honourable profession; whilst music and the fine arts have received an annually increasing encouragement amongst us.

All these good influences-moral, social, intellectual, artistic-find expression in a greater or less degree in the works of Mr. Tennyson. But a prosperous peace is almost necessarily attended by a leaning towards epicureanism-which, if too deeply indulged in, may grow into a positive evil, as it is in danger of becoming amongst us at the present time; and the effect of this insidious influence upon life and thought constitutes the one great weakness of our present Laureate