Mr. Morrison, was a bankrupt, and the announcement brought joy at least to the heart of one, and that one his own daughter, for she deemed it but the precursor of other intelligence-assured it was her reputed wealth more than herself her tormenting suitor sought; and she was not mistaken, for the next day brought with it an humble apology from Mr. Henderson for the unhappiness he had caused her, begging she would not distress herself further on his account, as he could never think of urging a suit which, he regretted to learn, was so repugnant to her will. A proud triumphant smile lit up her features as she sought her father, into whose presence she had not dared to venture since he left her with that frown upon his brow. She found him seated in the library. A haughty, determined expression dwelt upon every feature. There he sat, motionless, and apparently as insensible of all outward objects as the marble statues with which he was surrounded. She paused as she entered, awe-struck by the solemu and death-like silence that prevailed, and she half repented the errand on which she came; for the moment she thought no sacrifice too great which could add to the happiness of that dearly-loved parent. He turned and gazed coldly upon her, but deigned to take no further notice of her presence. She advanced tremblingly and placed the letter in his hand. He glanced hastily over its contents, then, crushing it, flung it from him with scorn. Emma stood riveted to the spot, like one who had been suddenly deprived of power and will. At length the violence of his rage gradually subsided, and for a few moments he sat calm and thoughtful; then the overcharged fountain of his heart gave way, and he wept. Yes! that proud man wept. He whose nature was never before softened by adversity, was now humble and contrite as a child. Then came Emma's turn for action. The sight of tears-tears upon her father's cheek-called up every tender emotion of her soul, and with a calm and dignified demeanour, which would not have disgraced one older in years and experience than herself, she advanced and poured words of consolation into his ear. She told him of the enjoyment to be found in a calm, secluded life, arising from the consciousness of having faithfully discharged the duties which Heaven imposes on us. It was a strange sight; that proud, imperious man, humble even as a child beneath its parent's reproving rod, and that young and timid girl, advising, consoling, and reproving even the grey hairs of age, with all the calm philosophy of experienced maturity. And then he drew her gently to his bosom; and his burning tears fell upon her brow as he told her it was not for himself he wept, for with him life's sun was nearly set, but for her, the cherished idol of his heart, whose fragile bark he must see thus early launched upon the boisterous tide of adversity, to anchor, perchance in the haven of despair. "Nay, father, speak not thus; weep not for me. While health affords the means, our livelihood shall be nobly earned not grudgingly, but with a buoyant heart and right good will,and we shall yet be happy-very, very happy. Though humble be our home, yet you shall see that your daughter is not unskilled in those arts which render even poverty endurable. You shall learn that happiness depends not on wealth-not on the multiplicity of life's blessings, but rather results from a proper control of the passions and affections with which a wise providence has endowed us. Together will we study the book of Nature, through that commu nion with Nature's God, combining the rare delight of intellectual and heavenly enjoyment with the sublunary cares and duties in which we may be called to bear a part; and think you, father, that we shall not yet be happy?-even hap pier than we have been here, amid all the splendour with which we are surrounded." "You are a sweet enthusiast, Emma. Heaven grant that your young heart be not crushed by so rough a contact with this cold world, of which you know so little. You have many bitter lessons yet to learn. Where you look for kindness and sympathy, you will meet with cold neglect. You will too soon find the distinction made between the daughter of George Morrison the millionnaire, and George Morrison the bankrupt. If argument or proof of this be needed, yonder crushed sheet would rise as the first witness. 'Tis but the first of a long list that will soon appear; perhaps in a manner less direct, but still quite as convincing to your sensitive feelings. Alas! that it should come to this! I have struggled hard to avert it, but to no avail. The only heritage I can now bestow upon you is an old man's blessing, and may Heaven's richest gift accompany it. If there is one, as you yesterday intimated, who values the jewel I have so long guarded for its own intrinsic value, I yield it to him. I have too much confidence in your judgment to think your affections would be unworthily bestowed. Pardọn my harshness of yesterday. It was the result of desperation to see my ambitious dreams thus crumbling to the earth, like the baseless fabric of a vision! 'Twas a hard struggle; but 'tis over now. Those dreams of happiness have for ever flown, and I look not for peace this side the grave; but your young and cheerful heart may yet pluck flowers from what would prove to me but a barren stalk, and I would not, by any act of mine, interlace them with the cruel thorn and brier. I therefore consentyea, more, I counsel you to bestow your hand on him who has already the possession of your heart." "But, father, my home as well as heart must be shared with you. It would be but half a home were you absent. But the ordeal is not yet passed. After the lesson of distrust you have just taught me, I cannot reckon even upon Frederick Clifton's constancy. He was to come to-morrow to claim permission to instal me as mistress of his humble home, as he asserts I am now of his affections; but, perchance, instead of himself a missive like yonder one may appear. We shall see." It is again autumn. Time, never ceasing, never varying in its course, has rolled onward and brought us, after the lapse of three years, to the threshold of that humble cottage. Around it the richly-tinted leaves are falling in beautiful and luxuriant profusion, while the night-bird is warbling forth its tiny notes among the leafy foliage, through which the mellow rays of the rising moon just penetrate, and then spreading onward and around, illumine with dazzling brilliancy the pellucid waters of that noble river, as it flows away in soft murmurs towards the fathomless ocean. Think you, dear reader, it will be an unpardonable intrusion upon their retirement, if with a gentle hand we push aside the foliage, and join them in their evening devotions, though all unseen by them? Look at that old man, whose bleached locks may perchance have seen the frost of sixty winters, seated in an easy chair, listening to the words of truth as they fall from the lips of one worthy to speak them. And that young and lovely female, seated near them, with her attention deeply fixed upon the calm, good man; and as he lays aside his book, and expatiates upon the wisdom, justice, and mercy of the Creator, her eye brightens, and the light of inward, heartfelt happiness, irradiates each feature. And as they kneel around the altar dedicated to the worship of Him above, with what fixed attention does she listen to the deep, eloquent prayer which falls from the lips of her husband. That grey-haired man, too, proud and haughty as is his nature, he has learned humility even from his own child; and the deep fervour of his voice and manner, as he, too, offers up his evening orisons, betokens the chastened. feelings of a heart which has yielded to the mild influence of Heaven's will See him now, as he imprints his accustomed good-night kiss upon the cheek of his beloved Emma; what does his manner indicate? Does it not tell of peace? Yea, more-of enjoymentof happiness-pure, holy, passionless, divine? UNCLE JOHN'S ENIGMA. 1. COME, children, draw around the fire, and as your uncle John is here, he will describe to you a wonder, which you may study hereafter:Now, Uncle John, be pleased to show, What giants from the earth do grow? 1. There is a giant born of earth, 2. Its parent died before its birth; 3. Though it partakes of vital breath, 4. It is the mighty child of death. 5. Its might is found where fire glows, 6. Its mildness where the water flows, 7. Its native forms all o'er the globe, 8. Are found in autumn's golden robe. 9. Its essence is the purest sweets 10. Made bitter; and so are its feats. 11. It has no tangible shape or form, 12. To every shape it can conform. 13. It has no colour but in flame, 14. And long it lived without a name; 15. Though then it reigned in many a clime, 16. A king of boundless mirth and crime, 17. It fell the father of a world; 18. Earth's victor to the dust it hurled. 22. It nerves the felon's murderous arm. 28. But has the fame of lenthening life, 30. Its victims form far larger bands; Now children, you may all be gone, 2. THE name of a tree that in England grows; you No doubt have been puzzled at times to construe. 3. A PART of yourself, and part of a cow, 4. IN number we are fifty-two, A motley, quaint, and jovial crew; By some deemed foes, by others friends. One makes his kingdom in the heart, 5. IN a dungeon far beneath the ground He earnestly did pray. He thought of that loved but distant land, He never more should see, Where he used my first with skilful hand, And turned my next, as he oft did stand 'Neath his lady's balcony. Not long did the weary captive pine, No ransom could he pay; My deadly whole round his neck they twine, ANSWERS TO CHARADES, ETC., PAGE 40. 1. Land-scape. 2. Labour. 3. Ann-ounce. 4. Drug-get. 5. Ambition. 6. Off-end. "TABLE-TALK" WITH ROGERS, turer; and, for his life, he could not re THE POET.* "BEFORE his going abroad, Garrick's attraction had much decreased; Sir William Weller Pepys said that the pit was often almost empty. But, on his return to England, people were mad about seeing him; and Sir George Beaumont and several others used frequently to get admission into the pit, before the doors were open to the public, by means of bribing the attendants, who bade them be sure, as soon as the crowd rushed in, to pretend to be in a great heat, and to wipe their faces, as if they had just been struggling for entrance.' "At the sale of Dr. Johnson's books, I met General Oglethorpe, then very, very old, the flesh of his face looking like parchment. He amused us youngsters by talking of the alterations that had been made in London and of the great additions it had received within his recollection. He said that he had shot snipes in Conduit-street! By the bye, General Fitzpatrick remembered the time when St. James's-street used to be crowded with the carriages of the ladies and gentlemen who were walking in the Mall, the ladies with their heads in full dress, and the gentlemen carrying their hats under their arms. The proprietors of Ranelagh and Vauxhall used to send decoy-ducks among them, that is, persons attired in the height of fashion, who every now and then would exclaim in a very audible tone, 'What charming weather for Ranelagh,' or 'for Vauxhall!' * * I recollect when it was still the fashion for gentlemen to wear swords. I have seen Haydn play at a concert in a tie-wig, with a sword at his side. ** I have gone to Ranelagh in a coach with a lady who was obliged to sit upon a stool placed in the bottom of the coach, the height of her head-dress not allowing her to occupy the regular seat. “Boddington had a wretchedly bad memory; and, in order to improve it, he attended Feinaigle's lectures on the Art of Memory. Soon after, somebody asked Boddington the name of the lec *Extracts from "Rogers's Table.Talk." Moxon. collect it. When I was asked if I had attended the said lectures on the Art of Memory, I replied, 'No: I wished to learn.the Art of Forgetting.' "Dunning was remarkably ugly. One night, while he was playing whist, at Nando's, with Horne Tooke and two others, Lord Thurlow called at the door, and desired the waiter to give a note to Dunning (with whom, though their politics were so different, he was very intimate). The waiter did not know Dunning by sight. "Take the note upstairs,' said Thurlow, and deliver it to the ugliest man at the card-table-to him who most resembles the knave of spades.' The note immediately reached its destination. Horne Tooke used often to tell this anecdote. "When I was a lad, I recollect seeing a whole cartful of young girls, in dresses of various colours, on their way to be executed at Tyburn. They had all been condemned, on one indictment, for having been concerned in (that is, perhaps, for having been spectators of) the burning of some houses during Lord George Gordon's riots. It was quite horrible. Greville was present at one of the trials consequent on those riots, and heard several boys sentenced, to their own excessive amazement, to be hanged. 'Never,' said Greville, with great naïveté, 'did I see boys cry so.' Southey "Coleridge spoke and wrote very disparagingly of Mackintosh, but Mackintosh, who had not a particle of envy or jealousy in his nature, did full justice, on all occasions, to the great powers of Coleridge. used to say that 'the moment anything assumed the shape of a duty, Coleridge felt himself incapable of discharging it.' ** In all his domestic relations Southey was the most amiable of men; but he had no general philanthropy; he was what you call a cold man. He was never happy except when reading a book or making one. Coleridge once said to me, 'I can't think of Southey, without seeing him either mending or using a pen.' I spent some time with him at Lord Lonsdale's, in company with Wordsworth and others; and while the rest of the party were walking about, talking, and amusing themselves, Southey preferred sitting solus in the library. How cold he is!' was the exclamation of Wordsworth,-himself so joyous and communicative. "Dining one day with the Princess of Wales (Queen Caroline), I heard her say that on her first arrival in this country, she could speak only one word of English. Soon after, I mentioned that circumstance to a large party; and a discussion arose what English word would be most useful for a person to know, supposing that person's knowledge of the language must be limited to a single word. The greater number of the company fixed on 'Yes.' But Lady Charlotte Lindsay said that she should prefer 'No,'-'No' very oft meant Yes.' The Princess was very good-natured and agreeable." crowded than ever was known in that theatre of science for practical objects. We remember to have read years ago a magazine article on calculating boys, in which the writer laid it down as a kind of law, that one faculty absorbed all other faculties, like the snake-changed wand of Moses, and that George Bidder, having become an engineer, was in no wise remarkable in this vocation. The critical faculty of the writer was certainly not remarkable. But one thing is worthy of remark— that George Bidder and Xerah Colburn, after being exhibited to the gaping crowds of curiosity-mongers, both became engineers; one in England, joining himself to the fortunes of Robert Stephenson; the other in America, whither he returned with his father, a poor man, after the late James Mill, Jeremy Bentham, and Francis Place, had vainly tried to stir up people here to a subscription, for the purpose of GEORGE BIDDER-THE BOY AND superadding upon the natural faculty THE MAN. IN our second Interview we gave some interesting statistics of railways. The following interesting account of a lecture delivered by George Bidder, Esq., once "the calculating boy," will probably explain by whom those statistics were calculated :: Recently, at the Institution of Civil Engineers, there was something new under the sun. Contrary to rule and order, an oral lecture was delivered by George Bidder, on the faculty of mental calculation, illustrative of the peculiarity which, in bygone years, rendered him a mark of wonder, like Xerah Colburn and Jedediah Buxton. This faculty he pronounced capable of being acquired by many persons under teaching, to the extent of multiplying three figures by three figures, and by others to a greater extent consistently with the power of their memory to hold facts; but that in his own case the stress of mind became very great when greatly increasing the number of figures. Nor did he consider the faculty very advantageous beyond three figures. But all this technicality was a very small part of the pleasure felt that evening by an audience more the highest kind of education, as an experimental test. He now conducts a weekly journal of practical science in the United States. But the charm of the evening was other than calculation. It was the tale, told with modesty and simplicity, of early struggle, from the condition of a labourer's child to that of a foremost worker at the great lever of modern civilisation the iron railway. The whole man was changed. We had seen him, known him, again and again, in Parliamentary committees, fighting railway battles inch by inch, with a face as hard as tunnel rock, with no outward indication that he had a heart within him, or any perception other than that of money to be gained. We believed in him only as a machine for calcula tion. But Othello's story was not more moving than his tale of life struggle. There was no oratory, no trick, no boast, but an even flow of words without a fault in grammar; all so true, so simple, that the very words were witnesses to their own truth. The world was gone, and the child lived over again without calculation; and those who had never before recognised anything but a rough |