66 marked, I knew him well, for I was on ce his footman ;" an expression which seems to us to denote the most perfect exemption from the vice of affectation. Mindful, says one of his biographers, "of the early encouragement which his own talents met with, he was ever ready to give the same opportunity of advancement to those of others; and on many occasions he not only acted as publisher, but as patron, to men of genius. There was no circumstance by which he was more distinguished than by the grateful remem. brance which he retained and always expressed towards the memory of those to whom he owed the obligation of being first taken notice of in life. Modest, sensible, and humane, he retained the virtues which first brought him into notice, after he had obtained wealth to satisfy every wish which could arise from the possession of it. He was a generous friend, and acquired the esteem and affection of all who were acquainted with him. It was his happiness to pass the greater part of his life in an intimacy with men of the brightest abilities, whose names will be revered by posterity; by most of whom he was loved as much for the virtues of his heart, as he was admired on account of his writings." Mr Dodsley died of gout, at the house of his friend Mr Spence, at Durham, September 5, 1764, in the sixty-first year of his age, and was interred in the Abbey church-yard, where a handsome monument was erected to him. His miscellaneous poetry is usually printed in the collective editions of the British Poets, and his Fables and Economy of Human Life still continue to enjoy their early popularity. It is not, however, for his distinction in literature that he is here noticed, but for those amiable and respectable qualities of personal character which distinguished him alike in an humble and an elevated condition, and were mainly, we are inclined to believe, the causes of his rising from the one to the other. He will ever be esteemed as a remarkable example of genius springing up and advancing to usefulness amidst unfavourable circumstances, and of worth which in all circumstances was alike conspicuous and alike recognised. Nor is he perhaps less remarkable as an example of the union of genius and worth. In too many cases the former quality is found in connection with properties which disable and degrade it, but in Dodsley it consisted with the finest affections, the purest morality, and the most laudable prudence. Finally, his life is valuable as proving that the original rank of no man in this enlightened land, however humble, is calculated to affect him permanently in the consideration of those who have had opportunities of judging of his personal merit. SCENES AND ADVENTURES AT SEA. CRUISE OF THE SALDANHA AND TALBOT. THE following attempt to describe a scene which it has seldom been the lot of man both to witness and to survive, will possess a melancholy interest from the associations with which it is connected. We will only premise, by assuring the reader that the narrative is perfectly authentic, and was penned in a communi. cation to a friend in Edinburgh, in almost the very words here set down. Some of our readers, perhaps, may remember of an extract from it appearing in the Edinburgh newspapers of the time, being inserted for the purpose of allaying the fears of friends and relatives in that quarter, for the safety of those whom common report had, not irrationally, consigned to a watery grave :— Lochswilly, Dec. 10, 1811, H. M. S. Talbot. At mid-day of Saturday the 30th ultimo, with a fair wind and a smooth sea, we weighed from our station here, in company with the Saldanha frigate of thirty-eight guns (Captain Pakenham, with a crew of three hundred men), on a cruise, as was intended, of twenty days the Saldanha taking a westerly course, while we stood in the opposite direction. We had scarcely got out of the loch and cleared the heads, however, when we plunged at once into all the miseries of a gale of wind blowing from the west. During the three following days it continued to increase in violence, when the islands of Coll and Tiree became visible to us. alongside, from which we learned that the unfortu nate Saldanha had gone to pieces, and every man pe rished! Our own destruction had likewise been reckoned inevitable from the time of the discovery of the unhappy fate of our consort, five days beforehand; and hence the astonishment excited at our unexpected return. From all that could be learned concerning the dreadful catastrophe, I am inclined to believe that the Saldanha had been driven on the rocks about the time our doom appeared so certain in an. other quarter. Her lights were seen by the signaltower at nine o'clock of that fearful Wednesday night, December 4, after which it is supposed she went ashore on the rocks at a small bay called Ballymastaker, almost at the entrance of Lochswilly harbour. Next morning the beach was strewed with fragments of the wreck, and upwards of two hundred of the bodies of the unfortunate sufferers were found washed ashore. One man-and one only-out of the three hundred, is ascertained to have come ashore alive, but almost in a state of insensibility. Unhappily there was no person present to administer to his wants judiciously, and upon craving something to drink, about half a pint of whisky was given him by the country people, which almost instantly killed him! Poor Pakenham's body was only recognised this morning amidst the others, and, like these, stripped quite naked by the inhuman wretches, who flocked to the wreck as to a blessing! It is even suspected that he came on shore alive, but was stripped and left to perish. Nothing could equal the audacity of the plunderers, although a party of the Lanark militia was doing duty around the wreck. But this is an ungracious and revolting subject, which no one of proper feeling would wish to dwell upon. Still less am I inclined to describe the heartrending scene at Buncrana, where the widows of many of the sufferers are residing. The surgeon's wife, a native of Halifax, has never spoken since the dreadful tidings arrived. Consolation is inadmissible, and no one has yet ventured to offer it. entertained hopes of reaching an anchorage before | ocean. feared. We had now miraculously escaped all but certain destruction a second time, but much was yet to be We had still to pass Cape Jeller, and the moments dragged on in gloomy apprehension and anxious suspense. The ship carried sail most wonderfully, and we continued to go along at the rate of seven knots, shipping very heavy seas, and labouring much-all with much solicitude looking out for day. light. The dawn at length appeared, and to our great joy we saw the land several miles astern, having passed the Cape and many other hidden dangers durAs the wind had now chopped rounding the darkness. Matters on the morning of the 5th assumed a very different aspect from the last two in arts, and in letters. But the expenses of this monarch impoverished his country; his policy enslaved it; and his own personal qualities, so far from being its honour, are in many respects its disgrace. The grand aim of Louis was to cause himself to be thought something above mortality-a kind of demigod; and in whatever way this end was to be brought about, whether by the extension of his dominions or the cultivation of personal dignity, he was alike indefatigable. As a monarch, he was, or rendered himself, absolute; he had not even ministers, except of a merely subordinate kind. But, on the death of his first wife (a Spanish princess) in 1683, he formed a secret matrimonial connection with Madame Maintenon, a beautiful woman, whose former husband was the celebrated Scarron, the novelist; and this person in time became a kind of prime minister. The Duke de Saint-Simon, in his memoirs, gives the following insight into the qualities and habits of Louis : "Though a young man and a king, Louis was not altogether without experience. He had been a constant frequenter of the house of the Countess de Sois more to the north, and continued unabated in violence, days' experience: the wind gradually subsided, and sons, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, the resort of al. the danger of getting involved among the numerous small islands and rugged headlands on the north-west coast of Inverness-shire, became evident. It was therefore deemed expedient to wear the ship round, and make a port with all expedition. With this view, and favoured by the wind, a course was shaped for Lochswilly, and away we scudded under close-reefed foresail and main-topsail, followed by a tremendous sea, which threatened every moment to overwhelm us, and accompanied by piercing showers of hail, and a gale which blew with incredible fury. The same course was steered until next day about noon, when land was seen on the lee-bow. The weather being thick, some time elapsed before it could be distinctly made out, and it was then ascertained to be the island of North Arran, on the coast of Donegal, westward of Lochs willy. The ship was therefore hauled up some points, and we yet Two small islands lying to the north-west of the Isle of Mull. Tiree was formerly celebrated for a marble quarry, and a fine breed of small horses. with it the sea, and a favourable breeze now springing The most melancholy part of my narrative is still that was distinguished, both male and female, that the age could produce, and where he first caught that fine air of gallantry and nobleness, which characterised him ever afterwards, and marked even his most trifling actions. For, though the talents of Louis XIV. were in fact rather below mediocrity, he possessed a power of forming his manners and character upon a model, and of adhering to it, which is often more valuable in the conduct of life than the very greatest abilities. By nature he was a lover of order and regularity; he was prudent, moderate, secret, the master both of his actions and his tongue. For these virtues, as they may be called in a king, he was perhaps indebted to his natural constitution; and if education had done as much for him, certainly he would have been a better ruler. He had a passion, however, or rather a foible-that was vanity, or, as it was then called, glory. No flattery was too gross for him-in In cense was the only intellectual food he imbibed. dependence of character he detested; the man who once, though but for an instant, stood up before him in the consciousness of manly integrity of purpose, was lost for ever in the favour of the king. He detested the nobility, because they were not the creatures of his breath; they had their own consequence; his ministers were always his favourites, because he had made them and could unmake them, and because, moreover, they had abundant opportunities of applying large doses of the most fulsome flattery, and of prostrating themselves before him, of assuming an air of utter nothingness in his presence, of attributing to him the praise of every scheme they had invented, and of insinuating that their own ideas were the creatures of his suggestions. To such a pitch was this intoxication carried, that he who had neither ear nor voice might be heard singing among his peculiar intimates, snatches of the most fulsome parts of the songs in his own praise. : terviews with him, through back stairs. Information conveyed in this form was the ruin of many a man, who never knew from what quarter the storm came. It was he who first invested the lieutenant de police with his dangerous functions, and which went on increasing these officers were the most formidable | persons about the court, and were treated with most decided consideration and attention by every one, even by the ministers themselves. There was not an individual, not excepting the princes of the blood, who had not an interest in preserving their good will, and who did not try to do it. The opening of letters was another of the shameful means of procuring information. Two persons, Pajoute and Roullier, farmed the post, and apparently on this condition, for no efforts could ever succeed in displacing them or in augmenting their rent. This department of espionage was performed with a most extraordinary dexterity and promptitude: generally the heads only of remarkable letters were laid before the king; in other instances the letter itself. A word of contempt for the king or his government was certain ruin; and it is incredible how many persons of all classes were more or less injured by these means. The secrecy with which it was conducted was impenetrable. Neither secrecy, nor yet dissimulation, was at all painful or difficult for the king. His love of sieges and reviews was only another form of this his only enthusiasm, his passion for himself. A siege was a fine opportunity for exhibiting his capacity; in other words, for attributing to himself all the talents of a great general. Here, too, he could exhibit his courage at little expense of danger, for he could be prevailed upon, as it were with difficulty, to keep in the background, and by the aid of his admirable Louis XIV. was the model of a king who should constitution, and great power of enduring hunger, have no state duties to perform, who was required as thirst, fatigue, and changes of temperature, really ex- the head of a court and the hero of addresses, petihibit himself in a very advantageous point of view. tions, levees, openings of a parliament, reviews, ocAt reviews, also, his fine person, his skill in horse-casional festivals, and in short all the lighter duties manship, and his air of dignity and noble presence, of a constitutional monarch, with one exception, his enabled him to play the first part with considerable passion for buildings. In all personal matters he was effect. It was always with a talk of his campaigns perfect. There was a grace in all he did, a precision and his troops that he used to entertain his mistresses, and an elegance in all he said, that rendered an atand sometimes his courtiers. The subject must ne- tention from him a distinction. He knew the value cessarily have been tiresome to them, but it was in of it, and may be said to have sold his words, nay, some measure redeemed by the elegance and propriety even his smile, even his looks. He spoke rarely to of his expressions; he had a natural justness of phrase any one; when he did, it was with majesty, and also in conversation, and told a story better than any man with brevity. His slightest notice or preference was of his time. The talent of recounting is by no means measured, or, as it were, proportionably weighed out. a common quality; he had it in perfection. No harsh word ever escaped him; if he had occasion to reprimand or reprove, it was always done with an air of kindness, never in anger, and rarely even with stiffness. If Louis had a talent for any thing, it was for the management of the merest details. His mind naturally ran on small differences. He was incessantly occupied with the meanest minutiæ of military affairs. Clothing, arms, evolutions, drill, discipline -in a word, all the lowest details. It was the same in his buildings, his establishments, his household supplies; he was perpetually fancying that he could teach the men who understood the subject, whatever it might be, better than any body else, and they of course received his instruction in the manner of novices. This waste of time he would term a continual application to business. It was a description of industry which exactly suited the purposes of his ministers, who, by putting him on the scent in some trivial matter, respecting which they pretended to receive the law from him, took care to manage all the more important matters according to their own schemes. A circumstance which deserves attention, is the residence of this monarch at a distance from his capital. It was not without its design or its influence in the establishment of the absolute sovereignty which was the favourite project of Louis XIV. From Paris he had been driven in his youth, and the memory of his flight was a bitter subject; there he never considered himself safe, besides being exposed to the observation of spirits of every description. At a court separate from the capital he had his courtiers more immediately under his eye; absences could be easily marked, and cabals crushed in their infancy. Then came the ruinous taste for building, which it was more easy to indulge at Versailles or Marly, than in the immediate neighbourhood of a crowded capital. His changes of residence were chiefly made for the purpose of creating and maintaining a number of artificial distinctions, by which he kept the court in a constant state of anxiety and expectation. It was the fashion to request to accompany him, to desire apartments near him; and according as these boons were granted, so was the courtier humiliated or exalted. When he resided at St Germains, Versailles served this purpose; when at Versailles, Marly; and though at Trianon the whole court were at liberty to present themselves, yet even there a distinction was made, that ladies might there eat with the king and particular ones were pointed out to receive the honour as each meal arrived. The schemes of this kind were infinite, and kept his court in a state of perpetual excitement and anxiety to please. The justaucorps à brevet was an invention of the same kind; it was a uniform of blue lined and turned up with red, and red waistcoat embroidered with a grand pattern of gold and some silver. A small number only were permitted to wear this dress; it was one of the highest favours, and every means of interest were set on foot to obtain it. They who wore it were alone permitted to accompany the king from St Germains to Versailles without being invited. One of his perpetual cares was to be well informed of every thing that was passing every where-in places of public resort, in private houses, the facts of ordinary intercourse and the secrets of families. He had spies and reporters every where, and of all classes; some who were ignorant that their information was meant for him, others who knew that it ultimately reached him, a third set who corresponded directly with him, and a fourth were permitted to have secret in He may be said to have been polished to the very limits of nature: no one better marked the distinctions of age, merit, and rank, all which he took care to hit exactly in his manner of salutation, or of receiving the reverences on arrival or departure. His respectful manner to women was charming: he never passed even a chambermaid without raising his hat; and if he accosted a lady, he never replaced his hat till he had quitted her. These are what we call the manners of the old school; he was the perfecter of them, and one of their most successful professors, if not in some measure their creator. exercises. The perfect command of his person was in part the consequence of his excellence in all athletic sports and He loved the air, and was constantly out in it, either shooting (he was the best shot in France) or hunting. After he broke his arm, he used to follow the stag at Fontainbleau in a calash drawn by four ponies, which he managed at full gallop with ad. mirable skill. He excelled also in dancing, a species of golf, and at racket; and up to a late period of his life was an admirable horseman. Connected with his fondness for shooting was his attachment to dogs, of which he used to keep seven or eight in his apartments, and feed them himself. He had a natural turn for magnificence and splendour, and certainly it was scarcely possible for man to carry it farther, and, like every other taste, it was extensively imitated, spread all over court, camp, and city, and reduced the nobility to poverty and difficulties; a result which he foresaw, and calculated on, to second his own purposes of subjugating the grand seigneurs of his dominions. It was the system of Madame de Maintenon and the ministers, for a series of thirty-four years, to render the king inapproachable in private. As he passed from council to mass, through galleries and antechambers, the courtiers had the privilege, whoever could catch it, of speaking to him, or whispering in his peruque any matter they might have at heart; his usual answer was a gracious je verrai (I will see); and if the conversation was attempted to be continued, the king, arriving at the door of his apartment, left the unhappy courtier to his reflections. By such contrivances as these, and a thousand others, the king was cut off from free com. munication with the world or his court, and with all his notions of despotic sway, was, in fact, a prisoner in the hands of a cabal-his mistress, his ministers, and his confessor, who took care to play into each other's hands. The different ministers transacted business with the king in the apartment of La Maintenon, where she sat at work, apparently taking no notice of the conversation which passed. Sometimes the king would turn round and ask her opinion, which she always gave timidly and modestly, generally coinciding with the minister: the fact all the time being, that the minister and she had previously settled the points in agitation. If, for instance, the matter in hand was a list of candidates for a particular employment, the minister went over the names, until he came to the one Madame de Maintenon had previously consented to, and after balancing the merits of the various competitors, at last summed up in favour of the name he had stopped at. If the king preferred another, and was obstinate, he was led away from the subject; other things were started, and the appointment was brought upon the carpet at another interview, when in all probability the humour had shifted. If the minister rebelled against the female sway, he was lost; but if, on the other hand, he was adroit and obedient, Madame de Maintenon took care of his reward. To a woman of de Maintenon's ambition, the declaration of her marriage must necessarily have been an object near to her heart. On two several occasions she had so far succeeded with the king that he was on the point of acknowledging her, and twice he was prevented; first, by the ardent solicitation of Louvois, and the second time, by the advice of Bossuet and Fenelon. Louvois was poisoned, and Fenelon disgraced. The Bishop of Meaux's authority with the king, the weight of his eloquence and character, and, more than all, the need of his services, prevented him from sharing the fate of the Archbishop of Cambray. The deathbed of this extraordinary man was as fine a piece of acting as any other in his life; if any thing could have gone deeper than the external surface of form and etiquette, assuredly it would have been the last agony. But Louis died as he had lived, with all the grace and decorum he loved in his brightest moments. His several addresses to his different friends and attendants, and lastly to his heir, were distinguished by that neatness and propriety for which he was famous in fact, so studied and so perfect is the whole scene, as described in the faithful pages of Saint-Simon, that it produces the effect of a wellacted play, and may almost be said to be affecting. If the combined efforts of a nation of courtiers could ever raise a man out of humanity, it was done in the case of Louis le Grand : yet here he is, a dying god, on his bed, discovering, as the film comes across his physical sight, and at the same time drops from his intellectual vision, that his apotheosis has been a misHis only regret was that he had neglected the interests of his subjects. His advice to the little dauphin (his great-grandson), not to build, not to make war, but to study the interests of his people, was as much as to say, 'take the precisely opposite course which I myself have followed.' take. He was long in dying; when he appeared at the worst, the courtiers deserted his apartments, and flocked about the Duke of Orleans, his successor as regent; when he rallied somewhat, the reaction was sudden and complete, and the duke was left for a whole day without a visit from a single individual." Perhaps no man who ever sat upon a throne possessed greater power of doing good than Louis, yet no one with these advantages ever did greater mischief. His payment of bribes, or rather a sort of annual salary, to Charles II. of England, gave him no permanent power over this country; while in his warlike views he was completely set at nought by Marlbo rough. His revocation of the edict of Nantes, which stamps everlasting infamy on his reign, led to the unforeseen result of making England the place of refuge of thousands of Protestants, the most industrious among his subjects, and whose knowledge of certain manufactures tended alike to enrich their adopted country, and impoverish that which they had left. While the example which he ostentatiously set of the wildest profligacy, had the effect of sapping the mo rals of his people, his extravagance in building palaces and laying out of pleasure grounds, in his mode of living, and in his continual wars, exhausted the national resources, and laid the foundation of that misery and discontent which broke out in the revolution of 1789. Till the present hour, France has not recovered from the deplorable prostration of morals and pecuniary exhaustion produced through his efforts. Such was Louis le Grand, one of the greatest and one of the worst monarchs of whom modern history gives us a description. TIME. [From the Italian Exile in England.] IDLENESS is the luxury of the Spaniards, and a great luxury it is, for it is all waste. It is a universal luxury, which is enjoyed by all, from the highest grandee to the most miserable water-carrier. The luxury, however, consists in the spending of an article of little or no value in Spain. The Castilian, who keeps so religiously to his word when his honour is in question, is never punctual to an appointment; because an hour more or less, in the life of a Spaniard, is only an hour less or more in eternity. If you propose to a Spaniard to set his hand to a thing at once, he answers you, however he may be interested in it, "To-morrow." Fatal to-morrow, which is repeated so often from day to day, till your patience is worn out! Fatal to-mor row, that has reduced the kingdom, once seated on a throne of gold, and crowned with precious stones, to rags and a dunghill! The very mantle in which the Spaniards wrap themselves up, and which impedes every motion but that of sleeping, displays their indolence, and the little value they set on time, as the laziness of the Turks is shown by their wide trousers and loose slippers. When the Spaniards are better taught, more industrious, and less prejudiced, they will wear the mantle no longer. Superstition is usually the companion of sloth. An active people cannot af ford to pray away whole days at church, or throw them away on processions and pigrimages. An in dustrious people prefer growing their "daily bread" with their own hands, to asking it thirty or forty times a-day as alms from heaven. When Iwas first in Spain, I was surprised to see that none of the lower classes, and but few of the more respectable, had watches; yet it is natural that it should be so. What has he who has no occasion for the division of time, to do with the measure of it? Their noon is the same as that of the horses and dogs, the emptiness of their bellies; the siesta is perhaps the business of the greatest importance they have to do during the whole day. It is esteemed such an indispensable necessary of life, that a poet, I think the tender Garcilaso de la Vega, sing. ing the delights of the Aranjuez, tells us that the nymphs of the Tagus, at a certain hour of the day, give themselves up to the siesta. The journey from Madrid to Seville, which is not accomplished by a galley in less than sixteen days, But what of would be got over in England in two. that? In these sixteen days the Spaniard would not have produced a skein of thread. For this reason, in Spain, and in all countries where indolence is in vogue, there are no machines for the abridgement of labour. Four years ago, the coaches of the king of Spain were in the same state as when coaches were first invented. In some provinces the carts have wheels which do not turn on their axle-trees but with them, making all the while an infernal creaking. The Spanish people, formerly so great, and who might yet be so, are rendered by despotism like the inhabitants of the Castle of Indolence, described in Thomson's poem, who, deceived by the perfidy of a tyrannical magician, slumbered on in the delusion that they were living in a terrestrial paradise, while they were in reality surrounded on all sides by desert wastes, and fetid marshes, and eaten up with wretchedness and misery. On the contrary, in England time is a revenue, a treasure, an estimable commodity. The Englishman is not covetous of money, but he is supremely covetous of time. It is wonderful how exactly the English keep to their appointments. They take out their watch, regulate it by that of their friend, and are punctual at the place and hour. English pronunciation itself seems invented to save time; they eat the letters and whistle the words. Thus Voltaire had some reason to say, "The English gain two hours a-day more than we do, by eating their syllables." The English use few compliments, because they are a loss of time; their salute is a nod, or, at the utmost, a corrosion of the four monosyllables "How d'ye do?" The ends of their letters always show more simplicity than ceremony: the have not "the honour to repeat the protestations of their distinguished regard and profound consideration" to his "most illustrious lordship," whose " most humble, most devoted, and most obsequious servants" they "have the honour to be." Their very language seems to be in a hurry; since it is in a great part composed of monosyllables, and two of them, again, are often run into one; the great quantity of monosyllables looks like an abridged way of writing, a kind of short hand. The English talk little, I suppose, that they may not lose time; it is natural, therefore, that a nation which sets the highest value upon time, should make the best chronometers, and that all, even among the poorer classes, should be provided with watches. The mail-coach guards have chronometers worth eighty pounds sterling, because they must take care never to arrive five minutes past the hour appointed. At the place of their destination, relations, friends, and servants, are already collected to receive passengers and parcels. When a machine is so complicated as England is, it is essential for every thing to be exact, or the confusion would be ruinous. In England there is no bargaining. The price of every article is fixed. This custom is not the product solely of competition and confidence, but also of the necessity of saving time. Thus a child may go to buy without being cheated! How otherwise could the shopkeepers manage on market-days, when, from noonday till nine or ten at night, their shops are crowded with customers? The greatest traffic in England, that is, that of the public funds at the Stock Exchange, is founded altogether on good faith. A broker effects sales of thousands and tens of thousands by means of a few figures in a little book he carries in his pocket. Without this laconism, or saving of time, how could it be possible to effect in a few hours so many transfers of the funds, and so many insurances? Insurances to the amount of ten million pounds sterling may be procured at Lloyd's coffeehouse in a single quarter of an hour. Why does no one travel on foot in England? Why do the meanest workmen travel with four horses, in the style of the proudest nobility on the Continent? Because the stage-coaches save time. The infinite number of machines, which, in manufactures, multiply a hundred fold the work of man, may be estimated according to the saving of time they occasion. When it is said that the cotton-spinning machine does the work of two hundred spinners, it is the same as saying, that it does in one day the work of a spinner for two hundred. These machines have been imitated, or have been made known by means of drawings, on the Continent; but how many others remain unknown, which, in the farms, in the seaports, in the warehouses, and in the shops, are employed by the English to save time and trouble! The Englishman does not expect to make his fortune either by the lottery or by miracle. Luther has deprived him of the latter resource, and the govern. | | ment of the former, having recently suppressed it. Hence he places his hopes and confidence in nothing but time; his wish is not that of Midas, to become possessed of mountains of gold at a stroke, but for an opportunity to work, and make money. Double an Englishman's time, and you double his riches. STEEPLE-CHASING. UPON the subject of steeple-chasing-a boisterous amusement recently come into vogue among the idle of the upper and lower classes-the Court Journal, a London publication, has the following excellent observations, in a recent number :— “We are no friends to steeple-chasing. We can scarcely help classing it in the same category with bag-racing, bull-baiting, goose-riding, and the rest of those charming exploits. How any man can prevail upon himself to furnish amusement to a bevy of grinning clodpoles, by floundering in a brook or turning somersets over ultra-raspers of hedges, is a singular stopper to us. 'Love me, love my horse,' has long been one of our most cherished maxims, and, with this claim upon the sympathies of our biped friends, we of course feel bound to support, with a double allowance of affection, the quadruped portion of our little circle.' We are no sticklers for mawkish sensibility, we belong to no society for prevention of cruelty to animals, not even the ladies', but we are decided enemies of any needless exposition of that no ble animal, the horse, to pain and peril. seriously as to be immediately put out of the race, and the Poet was so badly staked that he was obliged to be killed. We think we need not say, after this, that we feel ourselves justified in giving our vote against steeplechasing; and that it is with feelings of real regret we observe the revival of a sport that has neither the generosity of hunting, nor the utility of racing, to recommend it." THE POOR PASSENGER. WHEN the William Tell had been a day at sea, on her way from London to the port of Leith, Jack, the cabin-boy, who was the captain's nephew, a tight little fellow, full of fun and frolic, came up to the place where the captain was standing on deck, and tokened that something was in the wind, he said, giving his trousers a hitch, while his roguish eye be66 Why, sir, the queerest thing has happened that ever I knew." "Well, Jack, what is it, lad; I guess, by the squint of your eye, that it is some mischief of your own hatching." Why, sir," replied Jack, "mayhap you'll not be very well pleased to hear that there's a passenger on beard who has not paid for his berth, and I guess never will. Nobody knows any thing about him; he has never a bit of luggage, nor a stiver in his pocket, to pay his passage or his mess; and yet," added Jack, "he helps himself to the best of every thing, without so much as saying thank ye." "The scoundrel!" exclaimed the captain, quite incensed at the impudence of his passenger; "I suppose he thinks to diddle me out of my fare; I've a good mind to chuck him overboard. Where is he?" "I don't know where he is just now," replied Jack; "but he was all last night in the ladies' cabin." "In the ladies' cabin !" cried the captain, growing as red with rage as a turkey cock; why did Mrs Wilson, the stewardess, not tell me of this? did the ladies not complain ?" "Why, sir," responded Jack, "the old ladies did not seem to taken with him. I saw a pretty lass sharing her mind him much, and the young ones seemed mightily breakfast with him this morning, as cheery as possible." "I'll have the fellow ducked," cried the captain; "bring him up, Jack, and let us see what kind of a rapscallion he is." "He is decently enough dressed," answered Jack, "in a long-tailed brown coat and a scarlet vest; but he has never a stocking or shoe to his foot, or a hat to his head." At this moment the steward came upon deck, and was immediately hailed by the captain" I say, steward, where is this fellow who has not paid for his passage? Jack tells me he eats along with the other passengers; and what is more, that he slept all night in the ladies' cabin." "There is no such person that I know of," replied the steward; "Jack must be groggy to spin such a yarn." "I tell you," said Jack, "I saw him as plain as a marlin. spike; and what is more, I heard you speak to him myself." "Why," said the captain to the steward, "if you have seen him, you must have noticed him; for by Jack's account he is a queer concern: he is barelegged, bareheaded, barefaced, and dressed in a brown coat and red waistcoat." "I'll engage, sir," replied the steward, "that I've never seen such a chap on board." Just then Mrs Wilson made her Some of the objections that lie against steeple-chasing may be urged against hunting. True; but that has none of the redeeming qualities of the latter. There is no nobleness, no generosity about it. Steeple-races are ridden for money. In the chase, nothing but a manly emulation is the mover. In steeple-racing a man feels all nervousness-in hunting, all nerve. A steeple-chase seldom comes off' without most of the riders coming off too; and if the riders fare badly, the poor tits fare a good deal worse. In a fox.chase (remember three or four hundred of these take place for one steeple-race, and in each the riders are in a majority of from ten to twenty to one) an accident seldom happens to man or horse, that is remembered beyond the field it occurred in. The chief causes of the numerous disasters that take place in steeple-chasing are, the pace at which they are commonly run throughout, and the succession of trying jumps that occur in the course of them. In hunting, a horse, familiar with every object around him, is put gradually to his speed as the hounds settle to their scent; if a rasper occur in his line, his rider judiciously holds him back while yet at a distance from it, that he may get wind to carry him well over-and for one rasper that offers, in an ordinary country, there are half-a-dozen jumps that may be taken in stride. In the steeple-race, a horse, after having been in the trainer's hands for some time, is suddenly brought into a field where all is new to him-for we must suppose a horse to be "What is this I hear, stewardess ?" an arrant fool who does not perceive the difference said the captain, angrily; “ Jack tells me that there between a hunting meet and the mob of a steeple- was a saucy fellow all last night in the ladies' cabin; chase. Suddenly, without rhyme or reason, he is that he has not paid for his passage; and that he has started off at score, with some half-dozen or dozen had the best of every thing." "I wonder you arn't others, with nothing before him but a series of bull- ashamed to trump up such a story, Jack," replied the finches, ox-fences, brook-rivers, and what not; the stewardess; "I know what's proper as well as any enlivening career of the hounds, and their familiar and one, and the ladies would not suffer such a thing any inspiriting cry, are unseen and unheard. Racing pace more than myself. I'll take my oath that there was is the order of the day, and to wait is to forfeit all no such person in the cabin." "Oh fye, Mrs Wilson," chance of a place; for, by dint of tumbling, and said Jack, "when I heard you say myself, what a scrambling, and splashing, and diving, the fast ones beautiful vest he had got." "Well, captain," said will get on. The horses, pumped dry before the race the stewardess, "I've just to say, that if this little is half finished, fall one after another at their jumps, jackanapes is to be allowed to take away honest peoor (as is not unfrequently the case) are seen flounder-ple's characters, you must look for another stewardess; ing all together in some impracticable stream. And this is the sport that many have classed as the twin-brother of fox-hunting. Alas! that the noble sport should ever have such a libel pronounced upon it! That the gallant animal that has carried his master scatheless through flood and field in the chase should at last be resigned to the hands of the mercenary, to get staked and soused for the amusement of a gang of grinning clodpoles! Some may take exception to this last phrase as being too strong for the occasion. We don't like to mince matters; it is only strong in its truth. We repeat, there is a decided mercenariness in this sport; for if the object were only to test the relative capacities of horses, the chase affords every facility for its accomplishment. For facts, let us look back to a few of the steepleraces that have taken place during the present season. At the Aylesbury affair (every thing is an 'affair' now, from a battle down to a donkey-race), every rider got one or more falls, and a souse in the river, out of which some were obliged to be dragged; and Lord Waterford's horse Lancet died soon after, from the injuries he received in the race. At the Waltham Abbey contest, for which ten started, all but two got ugly falls, and all (or nearly all) a regular flounder in the brook-much to the edification of the Cocknies and chaw-bacons around. At the Boxley Hill match, out of three that started, two met with bad falls. And at the St Alban's race last week, four or five horses came down ; one (Grimaldi) ricked himself so | appearance. for this is the last time I'll set foot in the William Tell." "Sirrah," said the captain to Jack, "if I find you've been bouncing, you may make yourself sure of a round dozen at least." "If I have said any thing but the truth," replied Jack, "you may send me to the mast-head in a north-wester." The warmth and loudness of this discussion had by this time attracted many of the passengers on deck. Four elderly ladies most indignantly denied having seen Jack's friend, and fumed at the idea of their permitting such a breach of decorum; two young ladies corrobo rated their testimony, and the captain had just snatched up a rope to inflict the punishment Jack seemed so richly to deserve, when the culprit exclaimed, “ Stop, stop, there he comes," as a pretty girl with a robin redbreast ascended the cabin stairs, and joined the party on deck. "Now," exclaimed Jack, triumphantly, "did I say a word that was not true? Don't you see his bare legs and red vest, and his brown coat, without even a pocket in it to hold a stiver to pay his passage ?" "You young rascal," said the captain, "I've a mind to give you a sound flogging for raising all this botheration;" but in spite of his wrath, he was forced to join in the hearty laugh which Jack's roguery occasioned. Robin not seeming to concern himself about the combustion he had raised, flew chirping about the deck, now on the rigging, now on the mast, whistling away in the greatest glee, and seemingly quite delighted with his new home in the William Tell. Column for Young Men. ONE of the many things which young people are never taught under any circumstances in this country, is the art of conducting themselves properly at public meetings. A young man rises from boyhood, and finds himself, without any preliminary information on the subject, called upon to take a part in deliberations of a public nature; and it is only after years of painful experience that he attains a knowledge of the forms which regulate society in this, one of its most important functions. The right of meeting together publicly to discuss matters connected with our social condition, being an invaluable prerogative, it is certainly right and fitting that all young men entering into the busy scenes of life should make themselves well acquainted with the rules which have been established by general consent for the proper conducting of such assemblages. We shall endeavour to point out a few of the chief points to be attended to. man. According to usage, a public meeting is not constituted until a person be appointed to preside, or to "take the chair." Without this ceremony, the meeting is a tumultuary assembly, or a mob. The first movement is therefore the appointment of a chairThis functionary, on taking his seat, is for the time supreme in the meeting. His chief duty is the preservation of order. He allows only one to speak at a time, giving the preference to him who has first caught his eye in the act of rising, and giving every speaker a fair hearing. Another of his chief duties is the preventing of speakers from wandering from the subject under discussion; and if they do, he must remind them to keep to the point. In the execution of these and other duties, he claims the support of the meeting, and all are bound to yield to his reasonable dictates, and help to maintain his authority. In proportion to the firmness, yet mildness of manner, of the chairman, so is the meeting well or ill conducted. the chairman carries. There is another way of sup- UNCOLLECTED TABLE-TALK, BY CHARLES Lamb. -Where would a man of taste choose his town resi dence, setting convenience out of the question? Palace Yard-for its contiguity to the Abbey, the Courts of Justice, the Sittings of Parliament, Whitehall, the Parks, &c.-I hold, of all places in these two great cities of London and Westminster, to be the most classical and eligible. Next in classicality, I should name the four Inns of Court: they breathe a learned and collegiate air; and of them chiefly, those bricky towers The which on Thames' broad aged back doth ride, The noble hall Such is an outline of the mode of procedure at public meetings, and it is particularly desirable that attention should be shown to the preservation of regularity. At all public meetings there is a strong as Spenser describes evidently with a relish. I think tendency "to go out of order." By this expression he had Garden Court in his eye. it is meant that speakers are under a constant liability which stands there must have been built about that to wander from the point under discussion. They are time. Next to the Inns of Court, Covent Garden, for apt to digress into other subjects, and confuse their its rus in urbe, its wholesome scents of early fruits and auditors; and these getting impatient, are equally apt vegetables, its tasteful church and arcades—above all, to interrupt them, so that a single irrelevant observa- the neighbouring theatres, cannot but be approved of. I do not know a fourth station comparable to or tion may lead to hours of idle debate or colloquy, or "speaking to order," as it is termed, and thus the har-worthy to be named after these. To an antiquarian, mony of the assembly be destroyed. Those who every spot in London, or even Southwark, teems with attend such meetings should therefore have a regard historical associations, local interest. He could not for the following regulations :-If they speak, they choose amiss. But to me, who have no such qualify. should keep closely to the subject in hand. If they ing knowledge, the Surrey side of the water is pecu be listeners, they should preserve a strict silence. It liarly distasteful. It is impossible to connect any thing I never knew a man of taste to is ungentlemanly, not to say disorderly, to utter any interesting with it. sound or make any observation on what a speaker is live, what they term, over the bridge. Observe, in this saying. The speaker must on no account be inter-place I speak solely of chosen and voluntary residence. rupted, so long as he keeps to order; and if not in order, it is the chairman's duty to check him. It is likewise disorderly to speak more than once, except in replying before the vote is put, or except it be the rule of the assembly to permit it. Sometimes persons who have spoken rise again to speak as to "a matter of form." This is allowable; but in speaking as to form, the merits of the case should not be introduced. On this, however, as on every other point, there is a perpetual tendency to go out of order, and hence the absolute necessity for appointing a chairman well ac. quainted with the forms of public deliberation, and who has the strength of mind to insist on order being preserved. SWALLOWS. The swallows of Sweden, at the ap proach of winter, plunge into the lakes, and remain there asleep, and buried under the ice, till the return of spring. Then, awakened by the returning heat, they leave the water, and resume their usual flight. While the lakes are frozen, if the ice be broken in certain places which appear darker than others, the swallows are found in great quantities, cold, asleep, and dead. If they are taken out, and warmed by the hands or before a fire, they soon begin to exhibit signs of life; they stretch themselves out, shake themselves, and soon fly away. In other places they retire into the caves, or under the rocks. Between the town of Caen and the sea, along the banks of the Orne, there are many of these caverns, where, during the winter, clusters of swallows have been found suspended like bunches of grapes from the roof of the cavern. From a newspaper.-[The plunging of swallows into lakes is doubted, if not denied, by na At all our public assemblages, a certain degree of COW. At some public meetings there is no set plan of operations, and a general discussion on the subjects which are brought forward takes place; but at all meetings for specific important objects, there is a previous arrangement among a certain number of individuals to bring forward particular points to be spoken upon. In this case speakers are prepared, and the business assumes the form of the proposal and carrying of a set of resolutions, or motions. The follow ing is the routine of procedure: The chairman having stated the object for which the meeting has been called, an individual steps forward and proposes a re-ple to be followed. solution for the adoption of the meeting. Whether he enforces the propriety of carrying such a resolution by a speech on its merits, or simply propounds the matter, he must be seconded by another individual (with or without a speech), otherwise the meeting cannot entertain his resolution for a moment. If duly seconded, then the motion is fairly tabled: it is before the meeting. After a resolution is proposed and seconded, it is the duty of the chairman to ask the meeting if it be carried or not; if agreed to by a general acclamation, or by an obvious majority, he pronounces the word "carried," which settles the point, and the business proceeds by the bringing for. ward of the other resolutions in the same manner. It is unusual for any member of a meeting to oppose the passing of a resolution, unless he have a better to offer in its stead. If he have, and if he wishes "to take the sense of the meeting" on the subject, he has a right to be heard. Yet this can only be permitted, provided the meeting has been called in gene. ral terms. For instance, if the inhabitants of a town or district generally be called, in order to consider of the propriety of such and such measures, in that case every one is entitled to give his opinion, and to oppose the formal resolutions brought forward. But if the meeting be described by advertisement to consist of those inhabitants or others only who agree in the propriety of such and such measures, then no one is entitled to intrude himself on the deliberations who professes opinions contrary to the spirit and end of the meeting. An inattention to this exceedingly delicate point often creates serious heartburnings and disturbances; and, on that account, committees who call public meetings ought to be very particular in the terms of their announcements. As much regularity is necessary in respect of opposition to motions as in their proposal and carrying. The counter motion of an opponent is called an amendment, which, to be available, must also be seconded. If not seconded, it drops, but the opposer may place his protest on record; that is to say, if the discussion be in a corporation or other meeting, where books of the minutes or transactions are kept. On being seconded and discussed by those who wish to speak upon the subject, the matter is brought to the vote by the chairman, but not until both the mover and amender have replied, if they please to do so. After they have spoken, not another word can be uttered, and the vote is taken, a majority carrying. If the votes be equal in number, the casting vote of WONDERFUL TREE. That extraordinary production of the arborary kingdom, the palo di vaca, or "milk-bearing cow tree," which flourishes in Para in South America, is among the loftiest of the forestgrowing to the height of one hundred feet and up. wards. It bears a delicious edible fruit, which has the united flavour of strawberries mixed with cream; and its trunk yields as fine bowls of milk as those from a "It seems rather startling," says Mr Webster, in his voyage to the Southern Atlantic, "to talk of a tree yielding milk, but such is the fact, and it is drunk by the people in large quantities, and was used by us at the gunroom table for mixing with tea, in lieu of cow's milk, from which it is nowise distinguishable in general use. The milk is a rich, white, bland fluid, without odour, and of the taste and flavour of common milk. It mixes readily with tea or coffee, without curdling or undergoing any change, and in every respect seems like cow's milk. Boiling water does not alter it. It keeps unaltered six or seven days in the temperature of eighty-five degrees. It appears to differ from all the known milky juices of plants, and to approach in obvious properties to animal milk, from which it differs widely in chemical composition. There is no cream or caseous (cheesey) matter in it. I kept a bottle of the milk until our arrival at Trinidad-eight weeks after my procuring it-when it was sent to the Admiralty. Some, which I had myself, had then separated into a sourish milky water and a white solid mass, which, when taken out and dried in the air, was a white inflammable substance, not softening at the temperature of the body, melting at one hundred and forty-four degrees, tasteless, insoluble in water or spirits, and resembling white wax more than any other substance I could compare it to. It burnt with a bright agreeable flame, without smell, and was neither greasy nor resinous; I am therefore inclined to consider it as a species of wax." To complete the marvel of this tree, we must mention that it affords the most valuable timber for ship-building, and that it is so used in the dockyard at Para. A SIGNIFICANT REPLY.-"Thomas," said a sponging friend of the family to a footman, who had been lingering about the room for half an hour to show him to the door, "Thomas, my good fellow, it's getting late, is'nt it? How soon will the dinner come up, Thomas ?" "The very moment you are gone, sir,' was the unequivocal reply. COMPLIMENT TO THE LADIES.-It is a curious fact that the most carnivorous quadrupeds are more averse from devouring women than men. The bears of Kamschatka follow the women when gathering wild fruits into the woods, and though most rapacious animals, seldom do farther harm than robbing them of their fruit. It is again respectfully stated that no communications in prose or verse are wanted. Notwithstanding this repeated announcement, the Editors continue to receive pieces unsuitable for their purpose, and for the safety or return of which they cannot hold themselves responsible. No letters are received which are not transmitted free of postage; and no answers to correspondents of any description are inserted in the Journal, as it is considered that its pages may at all times be better occupied with information of a more interesting nature to general readers. All inquiries relative to subjects mentioned in the Journal should be left in writing at 19, Waterloo Place, and answers, as far as possible, will be given, if called for, on the following day; but no inquiries will be at tended to if of a frivolous nature, or for the purpose of settling bets. In some instances in which the Editors have sent letters to persons at a distance in answer to inquiries which they have made, the letters have been returned by the Post Office, marked "refused, a circumstance which discourages them from entering into a correspondence of this nature with individuals with whom they are unacquainted. LONDON: Published, with Permission of the Proprietors, by ORE Stereotyped by A. Kirkwood, Edinburgh. DINBURGH CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM CHAMBERS, AUTHOR OF "THE BOOK OF SCOTLAND," &c., AND BY ROBERT CHAMBERS, AUTHOR OF "TRADITIONS OF EDINBURGH," "PICTURE OF SCOTLAND," &c. No. 174. THE WIDOW WOMAN. THE Word Widow is employed, on the north as well as the south bank of the Tweed, as the general term for a woman of whatever rank who has lost her husband. But to describe an individual of very humble rank who has experienced this misfortune, the common people of Scotland use the phrase "widow woman," which they always pronounce in a tone of mild and pitying melancholy. The application of this term is indeed so limited, that we can be at no loss in resolving into an individual portraiture the leading traits of the whole class. The widow woman is a serene and unobtrusive dame, in the wane of life, with a placid and mournful, but resigned tone of speech; her hair braided plainly under a crimped muslin cap; a faded black dress, trimmed with brownish crape; the whole figure denoting poverty, but not unaccompanied by cleanliness and contentment. Her house, situated either on the ground or in an upper floor, consists, besides a kitchen, of two rooms, the best of which is devoted to her only son, a young artizan, or else, if she has no son, to some lodger of like sort, who pays as much for his accommodation as nearly clears the whole of her rent, and the knowledge of whose presence in the silent hour of night gives the lone woman a confidence and security which she could not enjoy if there were not what she calls "a man body" about the house. The other room contains her marriage chest of drawers, which she has contrived with much difficulty to retain amidst all her misfortunes. Before that piece of furniture, she may occasionally be found meditating over some piece of old dress, which awakens the recollection of happier days-perhaps the bridal gown itself, once white, but now yellow, not altogether without the help of tears for never can this garment be looked upon without reviving the image of him for whom it was first put on, and sending her soul once more to weep over his lowly grave. Perhaps, opening the bottom drawer, she slowly draws forth the patchcomposed and well-quilted bedcover, which exercised her industry in still earlier years, when her predominating object was to prepare for her union to the youth of her love, and every rapidly flying day was the gay counterpart of that which preceded it. Not a square or a hexagon throughout the whole composition but suggests the memory of some early companion who gave it, or some happy incident which occurred at the time it was passing under her needle. And for a quarter of an hour at a time will she often muse over this historical sheet, sighing for the friends and the days of which it is now the only chronicle. The kitchen, however, is the place where the widow woman spends the greater part of her time. Her hearth-stone is always clean; the chimney-cheeks are always white; the grate and fire-irons clean and orderly; the fire, except before meal-times, gathered up with a solid piece of coal, to economise its strength. The floor, which is washed every Wednesday and Saturday, and sprinkled daily with fresh sand, seems always alike clean. She may generally be seen sitting beside a window near the fire, busied with some piece of needlework, which, although ill paid, is her principal means of subsistence. Her manner of living is necessarily plain and frugal; though, being greatly respected both by her relations and others, she is in no want of society. There are even one or two families, entitled to be called genteel, who are glad to receive an occasional visit from the modest and worthy widow woman. On Sunday afternoons, when she has concluded a day, not of rest, but of busy devotion, she contents herself with a nondescript sort of meal, par SATURDAY, MAY 30, 1835. taking of the characters at once of dinner and tea, por PRICE THREE HALFPENCE. moment, and never runs down the slightly-furrowed cheek. She wipes it away with the corner of her apron, and, fearful lest her weakness be observed, has. tens to fill up the teapot and replace it on the table. When the tea is finished, the younger female washes the teacups, and places them again in the cupboard, while the widow woman trims the oil lamp, and again sweeps the fireside, and puts the house in order. If the night is tempestuous, or wet, the three sit round the fire and chat, or probably two of them are engaged in some work that requires little light, while the third is employed with his two hands clasping his knee, rocking himself backward and forward in his chair, gazing into his beloved's face and the fire alternately. Probably he may amuse them with some anecdote or news of the day, or read a portion of a book which he receives in parts as it is published. An hour or two may thus pass away, when the widow woman, recollecting she was once herself young, slips out and calls upon some neighbour, leaving the young couple to themselves. But the widow woman is never out of her own house after ten o'clock at night, and before that hour she is certain to return. The son convoys the damsel to her father's door, where he saunters a little, and shakes hands often-both unwilling to part-be half fearful to take the liberty of imprinting a kiss upon her lips, whilst she, although apparently offended at the liberty, looks as if she had been afraid that she was not to receive it. If the evening is fine, a walk takes the place of the chat by the fireside; and arm in arm the widow woman's son will always be found on a fine evening, walking with his intended bride along the most beautiful and sequestered lover's loan in the neighbourhood. In good time, the pair are wedded, and for several months the widow woman is almost constantly in the house, advising and counselling her new daughter. By degrees, as the weather becomes stormy, she is constrained to remain for the night, until it is thought better to give up the old house. The good woman then removes the best of her few articles of furniture to her son's house, and passes the evening of life in ease and A widow woman has rarely a large family. Gene. rally she has but one son, whose upbringing has been a sore struggle to her-all of which, however, she bore patiently, from love to him, and in the hope of his being a comfort to her afterwards. Sometimes the widow's child proves altogether unworthy of her pains, becomes unsteady in the trade he has been put to, and finally, after a long course of reckless and profligate behaviour, enlists. Then is she left in her advanced age, without any stay except her own industry. Nor has she even the gratification of hearing occasionally from her prodigal boy-till perhaps, stretched in an hospital, his heart remembers the comforter of his youth, and he dictates to a comrade the intelligence of his sore sickness and its dreaded termination. Trials of this kind are not uncommon in the lot of widow women. But more generally the youth is remarkable for good conduct. From his eleventh year, he has earned more or less by his business as a cabinet-maker or a glover, and happy, happy is he each Saturday night to bring home the entire sum, and deposit it in his mother's lap. Till about his seventeenth year, and during the progress of his apprenticeship, his company and his earnings are altogether hers. Evening after evening he will sit by her side, reading, or perhaps amusing himself by fashioning some favourite piece of mechanism. But, by and bye, the sense of an independent manly existence arises; he craves society somewhat more novel and enlivening; his wages increase, and he retains a tion, partly to be saved for some remote but deeply cherished object, partly to be spent in social indulgences-all of them, however, of an innocent character. From being as a scn to her, he then becomes as a husband; from a person under guidance, he gradually becomes an equal and counsellor. He is now more reserved; but beneath the gravity of adolescence, he still preserves the glow of affection. Nor is his love decreased by its being now partly bestowed on another. The object of his regard is a lass whom his incther has long known, and his courtship is accordingly favoured with her warmest prayers. His sweetheart often comes with her needlework after dinner, and spends the whole evening with the wi-clining years, for an old female is more apt to be an dow woman, conversing about the good qualities and good deeds of the youth, of his fortunes and misfortunes, his past hardships and his pleasing prospects, his quarrels and his friendships, until the clock strikes five, when the tea is infused, the grate poked and brushed, the hearth swept neatly in, and the teapot set down upon one of the hobs. When the wi. dow has performed these little duties, the intended daughter-in-law takes the key of the cupboard, and brings out the tea-things, which she endeavours to show some taste in arranging. The two then sit down once more to their work and their conversation, which they pursue till a few minutes past six, the hour dear to so many as the termination of labour. The son, true to a minute, then makes his appearance, shakes hands cordially with his mistress, smiles to his mother, and sits down between them. It is already a united family. It is then that the tear, not of grief, but of joy, may be seen in the eye of the widow woman-but it only glistens for a comfort. The daughter of the widow woman, if she have one, is almost as great a blessing as the son. Brought up closely under her mother's eye, she inherits all that love of industry, cleanliness, and good order, which characterises the widow, and, being accordingly marked as likely to make a good wife, she is sure of being early and well married. In this case, the widow is even more certain of a place of refuge for her de acceptable guest in the house of a son-in-law than of a daughter-in-law. Should the widow woman, however, as is very rarely the case, chance to have no son or daughter, her latter days are likely to be somewhat different; she finds difficulty, with all her economy and hard working, to make the two ends meet, and would in all probability fall a victim to cold and hunger, were it not that she receives some weekly pittance from the elders of her church, who, as well as the minister, call upon her, and help to soften the asperity of the world in her latter days. But the lonely widow woman is also indebted to some ladies' clothing or benevolent society; and her humble kitchen is often entered by females of rank and beauty, who devote one or two forenoons of each week to visiting the poor and distressed. Whatever may their motives be, the effect is good, and we ought to judge charitably; if, as is alleged, ostenta. tion is the source of their humility and benevolence, then, we reply, we wish all the world were ostentatious; for where it has the good of the old and the |