as he starts at midnight from his thin-clad stretcher, and feels the cold damp walls of his tiny cell around him!

"He had been dreaming happily. He dreamt that an angel-it was like his dear lost wife, but yet it was not her-had brought the lost jewel to his bedside-had told him it was sent from heaven to restore him to his own again, who were all at home awaiting his return; and that his trial on earth was over.

"Louder and louder swelled the roar without. "Fire!''Fire!' Fire!' roared a thousand voices in chorus-A fire at the castle!' and the rolling of the engines and the clashing tread of the horses succeeded one another in rapid succession.

"At length nature was exhausted, and he sunk once to sleep until the morning.

"What means that thundering knocking at the gate? A pauper would not knock so loud.

"Even the adjutant looked up from his daily task, but soon looked down again as he saw the hated livery of the castle standing at the portal.

"He heard his name pronounced, and the pallor of death fell over his brow and cheek. In another minute he found himself ushered into the governor's room, and confronted face to face with the noble giver of the banquet at which his misery had begun.

"He had scarce time to gaze steadfastly on the face of his visitor ere the latter seized him by the hand; but before a word could be uttered, a flood of tears-tears of repentance for a bitter and irreparable injury done to an innocent man, and coming from the noble and contrite breast of a soldier, broke from the long pent-up channels of the general's heart, and he wept aloud on the old man's shoulder. So totally was he overcome, that it was with the greatest difficulty that he prevented the official authorities from introducing immediate medical assistance, and like a flash of lightning through the gloom of night, the pauper's dream flashed o'er his recollection.

"To-morrow!-to-morrow!'-come to the castle-at any time-but come. I am ill; I must go now,' exclaimed the general, and thrusting a purse full of notes and gold into the wonder-stricken old man's hand, he allowed his valet to lead him to his carriage.

"There had indeed been a fire at the castle, which being simply occasioned by the overheating of the flues, had done no material injury; but the first place that was attended to was the plate-closet; and there, in a cupboard high above the others, where the usual plate for household purposes was kept, was discovered THE GOLD

"The following morning broke again bright and joyously, as if in welcome of the scene it was to witness. The old soldier had at once been discharged at the departure of the general, and was soon provided with comfortable lodgings in the town.

"His first thought was to seek his boy; but the news quickly reached him, that, tired of the monotonous life his son was obliged to lead as an apprentice, he had gone on board her Majesty's ship, at Plymouth; so he was left alone and childless in the world.

"That the snuff-box had been found ran like wild-fire through the place, and had reached the old man's ears before he had left the workhouse; therefore why need he fear to meet the inmates of the castle? In justice to himself, moreover, although he would rather have avoided the interview, he made up his mind to go; and again setting out on foot, he traversed the same path that he had passed

just eighteen months ago, when the storm arose around him.

"He had scarcely knocked at the castle ere the doors were thrown open, and every servant seemed to vie in being most attentive to the lately repnted criminal. He was at once ushered into the dining-room, where, seated round the table as he had seen them on that memorable day, were the self-same guests that then surrounded the board, and had sinee concurred in his condemnation.

"His place alone was changed, and now a chair was placed for him by the side of his host, at the head of the table; but the veteran refused to take advantage of it, remaining erect, and gazing with a fixed, half-vacant stare on the scene before him, as if it were all a dream.

"The general, however, as soon as he recovered his selfpossession-for he saw-and deeply felt-what a change was wrought in the old man's appearance, broke the subject, by saying

Deep, irreparable, and undeserved, as is the injury that has been inflicted on you, and for which no amends on my part can atone, you must allow that in a great measure you have been the cause of it, by not at the time submitting to the ordeal which every one else present readily underwent. Had I requested to search you alone, you might justly have felt indignant; but the measure was not even proposed by me, but by one higher in rank, both military and noble, than myself; and you would have proved as innocent as he or I, without having entailed on me the lasting misery of remembering that I have inflicted such a punishment on an innocent man as you have undergone-a recollection that will haunt me on my death-bed-and on yourself, the anguish of the past.'

666

223

"Sire!' returned the veteran, but his voice faltered audibly, I did not take the snuff-box, as you and all around me are now fully aware, but nevertheless I was A

THIEF.

"Yes, God forgive me! and I trust he has, as I believe you all will. In the midst of the dinner, when the mirth was at the highest, and when every one's attention seemed to be engaged, I took advantage of the moment to slip a part of the contents of my plate between some bread beside me, and when no eyes were upon me, I secreted it in my pocket. None of my family nor myself had tasted meat for days, aye, long days past! and I had more that day before me than would have saved my darling children | from the grave! I was a thief! My whole pittance had for months been swallowed up by the illness of my family, and what was given to me, I had secretly purloined for them. My days on earth are short. I care not to confess all. My gray hairs have come in sorrow to the grave, and little recks it what befalls me now. This is the reason I stole away like a thief rather than be searched, and dearly have I paid the penalty attending THE PERILS OF THE POOR.'

"The old man ceased; but the sobs that burst forth around told how deeply his tale had entered the hearts of his hearers.

"Spontaneously the whole host arose, and thronged around him. Kind words-noble promises-sweet condolences from the noble, the brave, the fair, were showered on the veteran's head, but, alas-like a soft song in the tempest-they fell unheard-unheeded.

"A cottage on the estate, fitted with every luxury, was urged on his acceptance-the arrears of pay made up-all that wealth could offer, or contrition devise, was placed at his disposal-but it came too late!

"The silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl was broken-aye, shattered past redemption'

"The old church trees were budding forth in spring, and glad birds carolled on their new-leaved branches, and a crowed had gathered round the churchyard gate, dressed in their best habiliments.

He is

THE calling in which a man is trained necessarily exercises a considerable influence in the development of his character. It affects his gait, his manner, and his speech, as well as his mental and moral characteristics. It is impossible to mistake the military man. an illustration of the power of discipline. The raw recruit-the clodhopper from the plough-is soon licked into shape becomes a smart, well-set-up fellow, and never again relapses into the lout.

How different is the sailor! He rolls about on his sea legs his feet always seem as if they were grasping for a footing. His manner is free and easy, with nothing of the precision and formality of the military man. His feeling, manners, and ideas are of a piece with his outer man. There is no mistaking Jack Tar for Corporal Trim.

It is the same with other trades and professions. Take a lawyer, for instance. Habit and discipline have made him precise and systematic in the transaction of business. He is a martinet in all things. His mind is made up of pigeon-holes, in which his facts and ideas are filed and docketed in regular alphabetical order. He is a red-tapist even at heart. He is a weasel whom you never catch asleep. He keeps old letters, and lays them up as evidence. He gets your name to papers, and thus fixes you to agreements. His whole character becomes fixed and determined by his profession. There is no mistaking the lawyer.

The divine is his very opposite. He has no knowledge whatever of business or ruinous habits. He is the most innocent of mortals. Of all professional men, he knows the least of practical life. He is always making blunders if he meddles with business. His business is speech. He is a student, a reader of books, a writer of sermons. And students are generally men of little practical wisdom. A man who is great in the dead languages is rarely great at anything else. He may know all about Greece and Rome, but next to nothing of his own age and country. He may even be ignorant of its literature. Hugh Miller says, in his autobiography, that "all the great readers of my acquaintance-the men most extensively acquainted with English literature-were not the men who had received the classical education. In that common sense which reasons but does not argue, and which enables men to pick their stepping prudently through the journey of life, I found that classical education gave no superiority whatever; nor did it appear to form so fitting an introduction to the realities of business as that course of dealing with things tangible and actual in which the working man has to exercise his faculties, and from which he derives his experience."

The medical man, again, is something quite different from either the lawyer or the divine. He is very much of a "lady's man." He possesses no very marked individuality of character. By habituating himself to humour the foibles of people of all kinds, he merges his own

individuality, but becomes a very accommodating, agreeable, chatty, gossiping, kindly person-somewhat oldwomanish, perhaps but always a favourite. His success in business depends mainly on this, and so his character is influenced and formed. Such men as Abernethy, who preserve their strong individuality throughout their professional career, are the exceptions which go to prove the rule.

Merchants differ in character, according as they are "wholesale" or "retail" men. The former can afford to be blunt, independent, and outspoken; the latter must humour their customers. Take the young shopman in a fashionable retail shop-how prematurely oily and bland the youth is--how insinuatingly he whispers the soft inquiry of "Any flannel, ma'am?" How he entreats a consideration of his "goods;" and how, while exhibiting them, he dilates upon their superior qualities. They are the newest goods of the season, the most fashionable wear--they are real French. Ah! we know the soft deceivers !

The same trade characteristics include all classes of labourers. Is there any possibility of your mistaking a groom for a mechanic, however they may be dressed? The groom looks to horse, thinks horse, and talks horse: a very good fellow, no doubt, as the animal to which he is attached is a very worthy animal. But did you ever hear of a groom growing up into a philosopher, as many mechanics have done? Holcroft was a stable-boy, it is true; but he may have owed his studious habits more to his cobbler's stool than to his exercise on the Newmarket training-ground.

How many

And what philosophers shoemakers are! great men have sprung from the cobbler's stool! Poets, mathematicians, and authors-Linnæus, Gifford, Cooper, and many more. Handloom weavers also, who pursue a sedentary occupation of a kind similar to that of the shoemaker, have given many great names to science and literature. Simpson the mathematician, Wilson the ornithologist, Thom, Tannahill, the Milners, and Abbé Hauy, were all weavers.

The out-of-doors workmen, when they grow up into something higher than their craft, exhibit peculiar characteristics. There is a vigour and force about them which you do not find in the men of sedentary occupations. Take Ben Jonson, for instance, who was a soldier, and after that a bricklayer; or John Hunter, who was a carpenter; or Allan Cunningham, who was a mason; or Brindley, who was a day-labourer; or Stephenson, who was an engineman; or Burns, who was a ploughman; and you have a selection of men of the most vigorous character, who put thew and muscle into everything which they did.

Barbers have not done much, and yet the class produced an Arkwright; but what, with all their advantages of 'aristoxy " and "high society" have the Fitz-de-laPlanches done? Printers have been a very literary classbut that might have been expected of them; bookbinders have turned out some good men too; the very greatest scientific man of this day, Professor Faraday, belonged to that class. But the vast class of factory operatives, like the tailors, are a blank. The tendency of their occupation is to make them mere machines, like the machines which they tend. The handloom weaver, though a much poorer workman, yet preserves his individuality, and is much more of a man, with more vigorous elements of character.

As Hugh Millar-a good representative of the class of stonemasons, observes in his autobiography, "There is scarce a trade or department of manual labour that does not induce its own set of peculiarities,--peculiarities which, though less within the range of the observation of men in the habit of recording what they remark, are not less real than those of the man of physic or of law. The

barber is as unlike the weaver, and the tailor as unlike both, as the farmer is unlike a soldier, or as either the farmer or soldier is unlike the merchant, lawyer, or minister. Between the workmen that pass sedentary lives within doors, such as weavers or tailors, and those who labour in the open air, such as masons and ploughmen, there exists a grand generic difference. Sedentary mechanics are usually less contented than laborious ones; and as they almost always work in parties, and as their comparatively light, though often long and wearily-plied employments, do not so much strain their respiratory organs but that they can keep up an interchange of idea when at their toils, they are generally much better able to state their grievanees, and much more fluent in speculating on their causes. They develop more freely than the laborious ont-of-door workers of the country, and present, as a class, a much more intelligent aspect. On the other hand, when the open-air worker does so overcome his difficulties as to get fairly developed, he is usually of a fresher and more vigorous type than the sedentary one. Burns, Hogg, Allan Cunningham, are the literary representatives of the order, and it will be found that they stand considerably in advance of the Thoms, Bloomfields, and Tannahills, that represent the sedentary workmen. The silent, solitary, hard-toiled men, if nature has put no better stuff in them than that of which stump-orators and Chartist lecturers are made, remain silent, repressed by their circumstances; but if of a higher grade, and if they do once get their mouths fairly opened, they speak with power, and bear with them into our literature the freshness of the green earth and the freedom of the open sky."

LITERARY PENSIONS OF THE YEAR.

The £1,200 annually appropriated for literary pensions have been allotted this year as follow:-507. a year to Mrs. Glen (widow of the late Dr. Glen, missionary to the East for nearly thirty years), in consideration of Dr. Glen's services to biblical literature by his translation of the Old Testament into Persian, and the distressed condition in which his widow is placed by his decease; £100 a year to Sir Francis Bond Head, in consideration of the contributions he has made to the literature of this country; £100 a year to Mrs. Moir (widow of the late Mr. David Moir, surgeon), in consideration of her late husband's literary and scientific works, in connection with his profession, his poetical talents, and the destitute condition of his widow and eight children; 807. a year to the Rev. William Hickey, in consideration of the service which his writings, published under the signature of "Martin Doyle," have rendered to the cause of agricultural and social improvement among the people of Ireland; £100 a year to Mrs. Lang, in consideration of the eminent services rendered for a period of upwards of fifty years by the late Mr. Oliver Lang, master-shipwright at the Woolwich Dockyard; of his numerous valuable inventions and improvements for the advancement of naval architecture, and the straitened circumstances in which Mrs. Lang is placed; £50 a year to the widow and daughter of the late Mr. Joseph Train, in consideration of his personal services to literature, and the valuable aid derived by the late Sir Walter Scott from Mr. Train's antiquarian and literary researches, prosecuted under Sir Walter's directions; £100 a year to the widow of the late Sir Harris Nicolas, in consideration of the many valuable contributions made by her late husband to the historical and antiquarian literature of this country, and the limited circumstances in which his family were left at his death; £80 a year to the daughters of the late Dr. M'Gillivray, in consideration of their late father's contributions to the service of natural history, and the destitute condition in which his family are placed at his decease; 507, a year to Mrs.

Hogg, the widow of the Ettrick Shepherd, in consideration of her late husband's poetical talent; £100 a year to the sister and two daughters of the late Mr. James Simpson, in consideration of his eminent services in the cause of education, and the distressed circumstances in which, owing to the expenditure of his own means in the furtherance of this object, his family are left at his ! decease; £40 a year to the daughters of the late Mr. James Kenney, in consideration of his literary talent; £100 a year to Mr. Alaric Alexander Watts, in consideration of his services to literature and to art; £100 a year to the daughters of the late Mr. Joseph Tucker, in consideration of their late father's services as Surveyor of the Navy for eighteen years, and the distressed condition to which they are reduced; £100 a year to Dr. Hincks, in consideration of the eminent services he has rendered to history and literature by his antiquarian researches, and especially in connection with the Assyrian and other Eastern languages; and £50 a year to Mrs. Lee, widow of Mr. Bowditch, the celebrated African traveller, in consideration of her contributions to literature, and the straitened circumstances to which she is now reduced.

BE KIND WHEN YOU CAN.

BE kind when you can, though the kindness be little,
'Tis small letters make up philosopher's scrolls;
The crystal of Happiness, vivid and brittle,
Can seldom be cut into very large bowls.

'Tis atoms that dwell in the measureless mountain, 'Tis moments that sum up the century's flight; "Tis but drops that unite in Niagara's fountain,

'Tis rays, single rays, form the harvest-moon light.

Stone by stone builds the temple that rises in glory,
Inch by inch grows the child till maturity's prime;
The jewels so famous in bright Eastern story
Have been nursed, tint by tint, in the bosom of Time.

"Tis grains make the desert-sheet, trackless and spreading ; "Tis but petals that deck every blossom-twined spray; There are leaves-only leaves-where the forest is shedding Its gloom till the density shuts out the day.

A word or a glance which we give "without thinking,"
May shadow or lighten some sensitive breast ;
And the draught from the well-spring is wine in the
drinking.

If quaffed from the brim that Affection has blest.

Then be kind when you can in the smallest of duties,
Don't wait for the larger expressions of Love;
For the heart depends less for its joys and its beauties
On the flight of the Eagle than coo of the Dove.
ELIZA COOK.

IMPEDIMENTS TO MATRIMONY.

There are some legal disabilities for marriage, such as the slight impediment of being married already. Another incapacity is want of reason; but if want of reason really prevented a marriage from taking place, there would be an end to half the matches that are entered into.

Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES Coor, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street.

ABEL MORLEY; OR, "THE GOOD OLD TIMES." THE world is getting better; men, women, and children, the land itself, religion, commerce, politics, are all together getting better: that is the point I start from, and the point I shall come round to. From my own notion of a Providence, I cannot think it should be otherwise; from my study of the past, from my experience of the present, from my trust in the future, by the seeing of my own eyes, by the hearing of my own ears, I am of nothing surer; by the dumb inanimate witness of mere things around me, by what is not that was, and by what is that was not in this my own village of Mineton, I know, I say, for certain that the world is getting better: by the ruined gallows on our once waste land, by the fruitful bearing of that land itself, by the schoolhouse beside our churchgate, by the flowers within our burial-ground, by the bathing-place cut in the river side, by the opened pathways through the park-land, by the poor man's news-room, where once hung the sign-board, by the well-filled church and chapel, by the emptied workhouse, and-by the story I am going to tell you.

Mineton is a straggling village, undulating amongst pleasant woodlands; to northward lie the lofty Marlborough Downs, with springy turf for thirty miles, whereon no horse grows weary, no horseman tires with the panorama stretched beneath him; town and tower, copse and river, vale and upland, never ending; and amongst them, not least fair, old Mineton's tower and steeple-for we boast both of them-Mineton Knoll, where the Dane lay camped for months within his trenches (beyond old Giles's time, who else remembers everything); and lastly, Mineton Common, fast becoming corn-field, but yet besprinkled wide enough with golden gorse to cast its gleam for miles. Here they hanged Abel Morley in the "good old times," and here-avoiding we will hope the prickly gorse-his naked spirit wanders.

There needs little proof of this in Mineton, but to strangers Mrs. Lawrence, of the inn at the cross-roads, will witness "how she saw a streak like coming over the gallows-tree one night in June, or it might be July (no it was June, because the steeple was struck by lightning in that very month), and heard a noise like roaring o' thunder a'most at the same time," with much other evidence of the circumstantial kind.

She remembers the whole story about Abel, also, but I prefer Giles's, old Robert Giles's, version of the matter;

[PRICE 14d.

he is sure to be sitting at his cottage door this evening, and loves a listener, and you may hear it any day from him, as follows:

"It is sixty years agone and more, when Mr. Heriot -he that was killed out with the duke's hounds-was our parson, that Thomas Ridley was mason and rented the stone-quarry, and Abel Morley was his 'prentice. Thomas was a rich man among Mineton men (the richest may be, barrin' Michael Graves as kept The Harrow,' not for profit's sake, but because he liked a landlord's life), with a good house under Walfirth Wood, that you can see marks of yet, and a great heap of the land that is now allotment,' besides; and he died very rich, too, though I shouldn't have come to that, and was laid in a fine vault o' the north side of the churchyard, where the sun don't come, and the nettles grow so thick; but he was not happy with his riches, after all. Phoebe Ridley you'd have thought would have made any father happy too, and he counted her, rightly enough, equal or nearly equal to his gold. I mind her well, and think I see her now, a winsome little body with sunny hair like, so bright it was, and her eyes at one time very soft and gentle, but they changed; as young and blythe a girl as ever I looked on before, aye, or since, though I was then as young and blythe as she; I have lived her life's span four times over come Michaelmas, and I say I have never seen her equal for beauty yet. Your young girls now-adays are too fine and lettered for me; perhaps I mayn't have the same eyes for 'em I had once, but they be certainly less pleasant to my liking."

Giles, indeed, entirely dissents from my belief in the world's improvement, and will not be brought to hear one word about it.

"Abel Morley was a fine young fellow, too, and living in the same house and eating at the same board with Phoebe, why it wasn't natural but that they should want to be man and wife together before long. I was half in love with the lass myself, but of course I had not the ways and means that Abel had of letting her know it, or it may be I should have swung on Mineton Moor instead of him; he was a braw boy enough, as I said, but had no strength of mind nor prudence, as it might be; didn't count the cost before he went forward with anything. I should have made her a better husband, to my thought, poor thing, but that's neither here nor there; she promised to have him, and he her, and they kept their promise in a manner, and yet they didn't.