during the cold season-from autumn through the winter. I am thoroughly convinced that consumption in its earliest stages can be more easily cured, and the predisposition more permanently eradicated by a winter spent at Malvern, under the care of Doctor Wilson, than by the timorous flight to Pisa or Madeira. It is by hardening, rather than defending the tissues, that we best secure them from disease. And now, to sum up, and to dismiss my egotistical revelations, I desire in no way to overcolour my own case: I do not say that when I first went to the water-cure I was affected with a disease immediately menacing to life; I say only that I was in that prolonged and chronic state of ill health, which made life at the best extremely precariousI do not say that I had any malady of which the faculty had failed to cure me. I do not even now affect to boast of a perfect and complete deliverance from all my ailments-I cannot declare that a constitution naturally delicate has been rendered Herculean, or that the wear and tear of a whole manhood have been thoroughly repaired. What might have been the case had I not taken the cure at intervals-had I remained at it steadily for six or eight months without interruption, I cannot do more than conjecture; but so strong is my belief that the result would have been completely successful, that I promise myself, whenever I can spare the leisure, a long renewal of the system. These admissions made, what have I gained meanwhile to justify my eulogies and my gratitude?-an immense accumulation of the capital of health. Formerly it was my favourite and querulous question to those who saw much of me, 'Did you ever know me twelve hours without pain or illness?' Now, instead of these being my constant companions, they are but my occasional visiters. I compare my old state and my present, to the poverty of a man who has a shilling in his pocket, and whose poverty is therefore a struggle for life, with the occasional distresses of a man of £5000 a-year, who sees but an appendage endangered or a luxury abridged. All the good that I have gained, is wholly unlike what I have ever derived either from medicine or the German mineral baths: in the first place, it does not relieve a single malady alone, it pervades the whole frame; in the second place, far from subsiding, it seems to increase by time, so that I may reasonably hope that the latter part of my life, instead of being more infirm than the former, will become, so far as freedom from suffering, and the calm enjoyment of external life are concerned, my real, my younger youth. And it is this profound conviction which has induced me to volunteer these details, in the hope (1 trust a pure and kindly one) to induce those, who more or less have suffered as I have done, to fly to the same rich and bountiful resources. We ransack the ends of the earth for drugs and minerals -we extract our potions from the deadliest poisons-but around us and about us, Nature, the great mother, proffers the Hygeian fount, unsealed and accessible to all. Whereever the stream glides pure, wherever the spring sparkles fresh, there, for the vast proportion of the maladies which Art produces, Nature yields the benignant healing. The remedy is not desperate; it is simpler, I do not say than any dose, but than any course of medicine-it is infinitely more agreeable-it admits no remedies for the complaint which are inimical to the constitution. It bequeathes none of the maladies consequent on blue pill and mercury -on purgatives and drastics-on iodine and aconite-on leeches and the lancet. If it cures your complaint, it will assuredly strengthen your whole frame; if it fails to cure your complaint, it can scarcely fail to improve your general system. As it acts, or ought, scientifically treated, to act, first on the system, lastly on the complaint, placing nature herself in the way to throw off the disease, so it constantly happens that the disorder for which they came is not removed, but that in all other respects their health is better than they ever remember it to have been. Thus, I would not only recommend it to those who are sufferers from some grave disease, but to those who require merely the fillip, the alterative, or the bracing which they now often seek in vain in country air or a watering-place. For such, cases. three weeks at Malvern will do more than three months at Brighton or Boulogne; for at the water cure the whole life is one remedy; the hours, the habits, the disciplinenot incompatible with gaiety and cheerfulness (the spirits of hydropathists are astounding, and in high spirits all things are amusement)-tend perforce to train the body to the highest state of health of which it is capable. The water cure as yet has had this evident injusticethe patients resorting to it have mostly been desperate So strong a notion prevails that it is a desperate remedy, that they only who have found all else fail have dragged themselves to the Bethesda Pools. That all, thus not only abandoned by hope and the college, but weakened and poisoned by the violent medicines absorbed into their system for a score or so of years-that all should not recover is not surprising! The wonder is that the number of recoveries should be so great-that every now and then we should be surprised by the man whose untimely grave we predicted when we last saw him, meeting us in the streets ruddy and stalwart, fresh from the springs of Gräfenberg, Boppart, Petersham, or Malvern. Here then, O brothers, O afflicted ones, I bid you farewell. I wish you one of the most blessed friendships man ever made the familiar intimacy with Water. Not Undine in her virgin existence more sportive and bewitching, not Undine in her wedded state more tender and faithful than the element of which she is the type. In health may you find it the joyous playmate, in sickness the genial restorer and soft assuager. Round the healing spring still literally dwell the jocund nymphs in whom the Greek poetry personified Mirth and Ease. No drink, whether compounded of the gums and rosin of the old Falernian, or the alcohol and acid of modern wine, gives the animal spirits which rejoice the water-drinker. Let him who has to go through severe bodily fatigue try first whatever-wine, spirits, porter, beer-he may conceive most generous and supporting; let him then go through the same toil with no draughts but from the crystal lymph, and if he does not acknowledge that there is no beverage which man concocts so strengthening and animating as that which God pours forth to all the children of nature, I throw up my brief. Finally, as health depends upon healthful habits, let those who desire easily and luxuriously to glide into the courses most agreeable to the human frame, to enjoy the morning breeze, to grow epicures in the simple regimen, to become cased in armour against the vicissitudes of our changeful skies— to feel, and to shake off, light sleep as a blessed dew, let them, while the organs are yet sound, and the nerves yet unshattered, devote an autumn to the water cure. And you, O parents! who, too indolent, too much slaves to custom, to endure change for yourselves, to renounce for a while your artificial natures, but who still covet for your children hardy constitutions, pure tastes, and abste mious habits-who wish to see them grow up with a manly disdain to luxury-with a vigorous indifference to climate with a full sense of the value of health, not alone for itself, but for the powers it elicits, and the virtues with which it is intimately connected-the serene unfretful temperthe pleasures in innocent delights—the well-being that, content with self, expands in benevolence to others-you I adjure not to scorn the facile process of which I solicit the experiment. Dip your young heroes in the spring, and hold them not back by the heel. May my exhortations find believing listeners, and may some, now unknown to me, write me a word from the green hills of Malvern, or the groves of Petersham, We have hearkened to younot in vain.' Adieu, the ghost returns to silence. E. L. BULWER. THE ANCIENT MEXICANS. IN some recent articles we gave an account of the life of Columbus and the discovery of the western continent, till his time severed from civilisation by the waves of the Atlantic, or known only to a few wandering freebooters of the north. We now propose to trace the history of another brilliant incident in the progress of Spanish discovery, and to record the fortunes of a man whose adventures perhaps exceed in romantic interest even those of the celebrated Genoese mariner. This is Hernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, the richest and most remarkable of those kingdoms that flourished in the western continent before the arrival of Europeans, and that in which civilisation had made the most extended progress. As the subject is exceedingly interesting in itself, we intend in this paper to give a short sketch of the ancient kingdom of Mexico, and the manners, customs, and religion of its inhabitants, as an introduction to our account of its overthrow and subjugation by the Spaniards. In doing this we shall be principally guided by the most recent of its historians, Prescott, the author of the History of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of the Conquest of Mexico. diminished the rain and increased evaporation. This valley was then inhabited by several tribes, whose history is involved in mysterious obscurity, rendered only more striking by the legendary fragments handed down by the conquerors, which serve to excite curiosity without satisfying it. The first race was the Toltecs, who, coming from the north, in the seventh century, fixed their capital at Tula, on the northern side of the Mexican valley, and are reported to have been well instructed in agriculture, the arts, and architecture. For four centuries they ruled the land, when famine, pestilence, and war carried them away, and a race of rude barbarians from the north-west occupied their habitations. Then other civilised races followed, among them the Aztecs or Mexicans, and the Acolhuans, also named Tezcucans from their chief city on the great The present republic of Mexico extends over the southern lake. The latter seem to have been a mild and gentle part of North America, from the gulf of the same name to race, who not only preserved the remains of Toltec civilisathe Pacific Ocean. Geographers estimate its extent at tion, but communicated them to the barbarous tribes among nearly nine hundred thousand square miles, or ten times whom they had settled. The Mexicans, with whom we are the extent of Great Britain. Only about a fourth of this more immediately concerned, also arrived in this valley in vast territory was, however, included in the ancient king- the beginning of the thirteenth century, from the north, dom, whose boundaries are very imperfectly ascertained. the fruitful source of migrating nations both in the Old and In this part of America the chain of the Andes, which had | New World. For more than a century they continued their sunk down to a low level in the isthmus of Panama, again wandering life, sometimes free, sometimes in bondage, till rises and spreads out into a wide plateau, whose mean in 1325 they fixed their abode by the shore of the central height is estimated by Humboldt at about 7500 feet. Above lake. Their choice was determined by observing a royal this rise many volcanic mountains, whose summits range eagle, of singular size and beauty, seated on a cactus or from east to west, and consequently in a direction different prickly pear springing from a crevice in a rock washed from that of the Cordilleras. Their summits are clothed by the waters, holding a serpent in his talons, and spreadin perpetual snow, while the low grounds near the sea ing his broad wings to the rising sun. Accepting this as have a temperature little inferior to that of the equatorial a favourable omen, they built their city-rude huts of reeds regions of Southern America. In this limited tract, there- raised on piles above the water-and supported themselves fore, almost every climate may be found, and all the pro- on fish and water-fowl. Such was the origin of Mexico, so ductions of the globe flourish luxuriantly. So well marked named from their war-god Mexitli, but known to its foundare these zones of vegetation, that even the unobservant ers by another title, from its legendary origin, which has natives distinguish them by various names. The first is also been commemorated by the eagle and cactus, the the tierra caliente or hot region, lying along the shores of emblem of the present Mexican republic. For a time, inthe Atlantic, with a mean temperature of 80 degrees, ris-ternal dissensions limited them to their island home, but in ing in summer to 86 or occasionally higher. Here sandy the beginning of the fifteenth century they formed a league plains are mingled with tracts of exuberant fertility, where with some of the other tribes in the vicinity, and not only aromatic shrubs and flowers spring up below majestic conquered the whole of the surrounding basin, but, before forest trees. But the warmth of the climate produces a the arrival of the Spaniards, had extended their empire malignant malaria, the source of the vomito, a kind of from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and even south into Guabilious fever, which rages with fatal virulence during the temala and Nicaragua. summer months. This region extends about sixty or eighty miles into the interior, when the ground rises and the traveller enters a new zone, where the air is cooler, the vegetation less luxuriant, and moisture more abundant. This is the tierra templada or temperate region, where many of the productions of the inferior zone have vanished, as the vanilla, indigo, and cocoa trees; but others, as the sugar-cane and glossy leaved banana, still grow. This region rises to about 4000 feet, when wheat and other kinds of European produce begin to mingle with the maize or Indian corn, and oaks and pines constitute an important portion of the forests. This is the tierra fria or cold region, the last of the great natural divisions of the country, whose climate, however, resembles that of the finest parts of Italy. Near Mexico, the mean of the whole year is about 62 degrees, corresponding to that of Lisbon or Naples; whilst the winter is only 55, and the summer 66 degrees, being thus far more uniform and temperate than in these European cities. Above the plain rise various volcanic peaks, of which Orizaba and Popocatepetl reach an elevation of 18,000 feet or more above the sea. Their summits are clothed in perpetual snow, only dissolved by the warm vapours rising from the ever active fires within. In the middle of the plateau lies the celebrated valley of Mexico, of an oval form, and about 280 miles in circumference. It is surrounded by a range of lofty mountains of igneous rock, and in the lower parts occupied by several lakes, on whose shores stood the cities of Mexico and Tezcuco, the capitals of two ancient kingdoms. These lakes were, at the time of the invasion, much larger in extent than subsequently, when the indiscriminate destruction of the thick forests that once covered the land had This wide-expanded empire was the work of the able and warlike sovereigns who ruled the state. The monarchs were nearly absolute in authority, and elected by the nobles from a particular family, their choice being determined by the military talents of the candidates. The monarch was installed with many religious ceremonies, when, in a victorious campaign, he had secured a sufficient number of captives to sacrifice to their bloody gods. He lived with much barbaric pomp, surrounded by his body-guard, his councillors, and nobility, who seem to have held large tracts of land by a kind of feudal tenure being bound to follow the monarch in war, and to render him various other services in peace. The administration of justice was, in important cases, reserved to judges appointed by the king in the various districts; less important matters were decided by magistrates elected by the people themselves. In the allied kingdom of Tezcuco, a more artificial gradation of courts was established, at the head of which was a general assembly, meeting in the capital, and presided over by the king himself. The judges held their office for life, were paid from the crown lands, and when convicted of receiving a present or bribe, were punished with death. The proceedings in each case were recorded in hieroglyphic paintings, which were sometimes produced as testimony in suits respecting real property, even under the Spaniards. In these paintings the laws also were recorded, and the punishment of various crimes announced. Murder, adultery, and certain cases of theft were capital, and intemperance in the young was visited with the same penalty, in the old by loss of rank and property. Marriage was celebrated with much formality, and divorces only authorised by the sentence of a particular court. Captives, criminals, and debtors, might be reduced to slavery, but their condi tion was alleviated by mild regulations, and all the children were free. By a peculiarity which it would have been well for Christian states to have imitated, no one could be born to slavery in Mexico. Continual wars produced an abundant supply of slaves and victims for sacrifice. The royal revenue was derived partly from the crown lands, partly from a portion of the produce rendered by the people; whilst various services were performed by persons living in the vicinity of the court. Manufacturers also contributed a portion of their goods, and tax-gatherers collected the various articles with much rigour. War was, however, the chief aim of the Mexican institutions, and on its followers the highest honours of the state were lavished. Their king, we have seen, must be a warrior; their tutelar deity was the god of war, on whose altars hecatombs of captives were sacrificed; and death in battle was a sure passport to the realms of bliss and the bright mansions of the sun. Their higher warriors were clad in quilted cotton, often covered with gorgeous feather-work or plates of gold, which is beautifully described in Southey's Madoc : Their mail, if mail it may be called, was woven Bleached to the whiteness of new fallen snow. Others, of higher office, were arrayed In feathery breast-plates, of more gorgeous hue believe that either they had been derived from this source before the arrival of the Spaniards, or that Catholic historians have interpreted the rude rites and language of heathenism in conformity with their own ideas. The priests were very numerous, more than 5000 being attached to the principal temple in the capital; each had his particular deity, in whose temple he resided, at least when actively employed. Besides religious duties, they had also charge of the education of youth, and preserved the hieroglyphical paintings and oral traditions. They were presided over by two high priests, the chief councillors of the king. Their temples were very numerous, and were generally solid masses of earth cased with brick or stone, and rising in a succession of terraces in a kind of pyramidal form. On the top was a broad area on which stood one or two towers containing the images of the gods, and before them the stone of sacrifice, with two lofty altars, on which the fire was never extinguished. Many of their ceremonies were of a light and joyous nature, consisting of songs and dances. But they had rites of a darker aspect. Not only were animals sacrificed to their deities, but for 200 years before the conquest human sacrifices prevailed to a great extent. The intended victim was often selected a year before, and in the interval treated with all manner of indulgence, arrayed in a splendid dress, and, when he went abroad, attended by a train of Than the pheasant's glittering pride. But what were these, royal pages. But the fatal day arrived, he was led to the temple, and as he ascended its winding steps, cast aside The religious faith of the Mexicans was so anomalous as to lead some historians to ascribe it to two independent sources. They recognised the existence of one supreme God, the Creator and Lord of the universe, and in their prayers addressed him as 'the God by whom we live, omnipresent, that knoweth all thoughts, and giveth all gifts, without whom man is as nothing, who is invisible, incorporeal, of perfect perfection and purity, under whose wings we find repose and a sure defence.' But this pure faith was too simple, too sublime, for their savage minds; and they added thirteen principal and above two hundred From these horrid rites, which show the depths to which inferior deities, presiding over the elements and the for- the human mind, when left to itself, will sink, we gladly tunes of men. At the head was the god of war, the patron turn to their science and civilisation. As the basis of this deity of the nation, whose fantastic image, loaded with we may consider their system of hieroglyphics or picturecostly ornaments, was enshrined in stately temples, whose writing, by which the memory of past events was preserved altars reeked with the blood of human victims. Another for posterity. In this real objects were represented by was the god of the air, who resided for a time on earth, their image, and abstract notions by symbols, often of a and taught the use of metals, agriculture, and the arts of very fanciful kind. Thus, a 'serpent' was chosen to repregovernment. Then was the golden age of Anahuac, when sent time, a 'tongue' denoted speaking, a foot-print' trathe earth teemed with fruits and flowers, and the air was velling, a 'man sitting on the ground' an earthquake. filled with sweet perfumes and the melody of birds; but Slight changes in the form and position of an object often a more powerful hostile deity compelled him to leave the materially altered its signification, and rendered this earth, and the celestial stranger-described as tall in sta- method of conveying knowledge imperfect and difficult. ture, with a white skin, long dark hair, and a flowing For the names of persons and places, the hieroglyphics beard-set sail on the Mexican Gulf, promising again to were often used simply as marking sounds, though in this revisit the land. The whole legend would almost induce they had attained to less perfection than the ancient Egypus to believe that some wanderer from the eastern hemis- tians. In these rude signs the Aztecs recorded the annals phere had reached their shores, taught the people certain of their race, their laws, and religious ritual. Their manureligious truths and a few of the arts of civilisation, and scripts were inscribed on a kind of paper made from the then set sail for his home, which he had never reached. leaves of the American aloe, and immense quantities of According to their mythology, the earth had undergone them were in existence on the arrival of the Spaniards. several revolutions, in which the race of men had been But these people looked on them as magic scrolls, and the destroyed and afterwards renewed. They also believed in first archbishop of Mexico, collecting them from all quara future world, in which the wicked were punished in ever-ters, reduced the mountain heap," as it was called, to lasting darkness; another class lived in indolent contentment; and the heroes who fell in battle passed to the presence of the sun, whom they followed in his course round the heavens, or animated the clouds or singing birds of beautiful plumage that dwelt in the gardens of paradise. The dead were buried after ceremonies not unlike those of the Catholic church, and a throng of slaves were sacrificed at the obsequies of the rich and powerful. When a child was named, its lips and bosom were sprinkled with water, and the Lord was implored to permit the holy drops to wash away the sin that was given to it before the foundation of the world, so that the child might be born anew.' Many of their moral precepts also bear a strong resemblance to Christianity, and would almost induce us to ashes. Some remnants alone escaped, and are preserved in various European libraries, but the key to interpret them is lost probably for ever. The Mexicans had a system of arithmetical notation of considerable complexity. Their year was divided into eighteen months of twenty days each, and five supplementary days were added, which belonged to no month, and were thought peculiarly unlucky. They had also a week of five days, the last being the market day. They had another intercalation of twelve or thirteen days every fiftytwo years, by which the calendar was adjusted to true time with wonderful exactness. The priests had a peculiar system of chronology, by which they regulated the occurrence of the religious festivals, and which they used for calculating nativities and for other astrological purposes. In 1790 a dial or circular block of carved stone was dug up in the great square of Mexico, which has been held to show that the ancient Aztecs had the means of fixing with precision the hours of the day, of which they counted sixteen, the periods of the solstices and equinoxes, and that of the transit of the sun across the zenith of Mexico. In many respects their astronomical system bears a strong analogy to that of Eastern Asia, and as it seems too scientific in its details to have been the invention of a barbarous nation, philosophers have inclined to the belief that it was borrowed by some unknown means from the Old World. In agriculture the Mexicans had made considerable advances; it was held in high respect, and formed the chief occupation of a great part of the people. The banana, the cacao, whose fruit produces the chocolate, the vanilla, and the maize or Indian corn, grew in abundance. But the most remarkable production was the maguey or great Mexican aloe, whose clustering pyramids of flowers, towering above their dark coronals of leaves, were seen sprinkled over many a broad acre of the table land;' from its juice was produced an intoxicating beverage, pulque, still highly esteemed by the natives; its roots formed a palatable and nutritious food; its leaves were used to cover their dwellings, or made into thread, cords, cloth, or paper; whilst the thorns at the extremities were employed as pins or needles. Such were the varied uses of the agave, of which it is doubtful whether there are more species than the one now common both in Europe and the United States. Gold, silver, lead, tin, and copper were abundant; but though iron ores were profusely scattered through the land, the use of that metal was unknown. For it they employed a kind of bronze or alloy of tin and copper. With this they carved vessels of gold and silver into the most curious forms, and even contrived to polish many of the precious stones. For this purpose they also used obsidian or volcanic glass, which they fashioned into various cutting instruments. A fine dye was procured from the cochineal insect, fed on plantations of cactus. Their garments of feather-work also employed many of the people, and were remarkable for the skill and beauty with which the various tints were blended. Gold dust, bits of tin, and bags of cacao served for money. They had no shops, but regular markets, and their merchants travelled over the whole country and even into distant lands. Marriage, as formerly stated, was sanctioned by various ceremonies, and only annulled by the decision of a legal court. Polygamy was, however, permitted, but does not seem to have produced its usual effects of degrading the character of the females, who were permitted to share the social intercourse and festivities of the men. These were very frequent, and, among the higher classes, exhibited much luxury and profusion. Among the most esteemed dishes was a slave sacrificed on purpose, and elaborately cooked. Chocolate and pulque were the favourite beverages, and dancing and music usually closed the festivities. In the allied kingdom of Tezcuco, civilisation had reached even a higher limit, and the people appear of a more refined and gentle character. Its leading features were, however, so similar, that we shall not describe them. The origin of this civilisation is a most interesting question, but one on which little light can be thrown. Modern researches have rather proved that it existed, than shown how it arose or whence it came. Many pious authors lead a colony of Jews, a portion of the lost ten tribes, into this remote land. A migration of Mongols, who, crossing at Behring's Straits or the Aleutian islands, journeyed down from the north to settle in this fertile land, has been adopted by others. Though more probable than the former, it is less so than the opinion supported by other authors, who seek for the origin of this civilisation from abroad, that some European sailors, driven from their course by the winds, or seeking adventure in the unknown ocean, may have reached that distant shore. Southey, in his poem of Madoc, has given popularity to the old Welsh tradition of prince who, flying from the Saxon invader, found a home in a western land. Perhaps, however, the civilisation was of native growth, and its similarity to that of other lands arose simply from the unity of human nature producing like fruits in like conditions. Not less singular is the completeness with which this civilisation has disappeared from among their descendants. The modern Mexican Indian has lost the highest lineaments of his ancestors, without acquiring any compensation from his European conquerors. As Prescott well remarks, The American Indian has something peculiarly sensitive in his nature. He shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a foreign hand. Even when this foreign influence comes in the form of civilisation, he seems to sink and pine away beneath it. It has been so with the Mexicans. Under the Spanish domination, their numbers have silently melted way. Their energies are broken. They no longer tread their mountain plains with the conscious independence of their ancestors. In their faltering step, and meek and melancholy aspect, we read the sad characters of the conquered race. The cause of humanity indeed has gained. They live under a better system of laws, a more assured tranquillity, a purer faith. But all does not avail. Their civilisation was of the hardy character which belongs to the wilderness. The fierce virtues of the Aztec were all his own. They refused to submit to European cultureto be engrafted on a foreign stock. His outward form, his complexion, his lineaments, are substantially the same; but the moral characteristics of the nation, all that constituted its individuality as a race, are effaced for ever.' FLYNTEY HARTE; OR, THE HARDENING PROCESS. [THE following story is from the pen of JOSEPH C. NEAL, an American author, and, judging from the pleasure it has given ourselves, must, we should imagine, prove universally acceptable; but, though the story is well told, the amusement it yields is not to be regarded as its only or even chief recommendation. It points a decided moral. It attaches to the mode in which too many children are trained, all the subsequent immoralities that stain their riper years. But let the story speak for itself.] 'I'll knock your head off!' accompanied by an effort, partially at least, to carry the threat into execution, formed the earliest outpouring of maternal tenderness that little Flyntey Harte could bring to mind; and it made an impression, both mental and physical, which time has been unable to efface. I'll knock your head off!' exclaimed Mrs Flyntey Harte-a good enough woman in her way, everybody said; but, as the good enough family often are, quite unused to self-restraint, innocent altogether of the theory and practice of self-government, and wofully addicted, when provoked or vexed, to extravagances of speech and redundancies of action. Such was particularly the case in the present instance. The young Flyntey being affected with a crossness and a perversity, at a moment when the good lady aforesaid had no temper for the endurance-these stages of condition always happen out of time—the young Flyntey was of course forthwith accommodated with a sonorous box of the ear, intended mainly to soothe his perturbed spirit; while it likewise served all the purposes of an orrery to his as yet unenlightened understanding. Flyntey saw quite as many stars, in galaxy or in constellation, as ever became apparent to the astronomer; but unfortunately for Mrs Flyntey Harte, the remedial means resorted to rather tended to aggravate than to counteract the disorder; and little Flyntey, who had given offence in the first place by the expression of his uneasiness, having now an increase to his uneasiness, set himself to work at an increased expression and with renewed offence. Consequently, there was quite a bawl' at Mrs Flyntey Harte's, with more of music in it than was agreeable or diverting, inducing several other demonstrations, knockingly, at little Flyntey's head, to allay the storm which had been caused by knocks. 'Wont you hush?'-and as Flyntey gave no token of acquiescence, but, on the contrary, expanded his mouth still wider, he was taken and shaken,' to the variation, though perhaps not to the improvement of his vocal strain. The resources of genius, as regards the administration of nursery affairs, appeared at last to be exhausted. Mrs Flyntey Harte sat down to rock herself, in all the energy of despair; and little Flyntey Harte roared away as lustily as ever, over the griefs, known and unknown, which disturbed his mental tranquillity. But a new idea suddenly flashed into the maternal mind, like one of those strategic inspirations which often gain the day when the battle is seemingly lost. 'I'll give you something to cry for!' screamed the lady, again taking up the controversy, on the assumption that like cures like; and it must be confessed that she was fully equal to her word. Little Flyntey was immediately furnished with something to cry for, in addition to that which he had received already, and being thus furnished, under a belief that by this species of urging he would the sooner be induced to cry himself out, he took ample occasion to demonstrate the soundness and endurance of the lungs with which he was gifted, and perversely afforded no prospect whatever of being cried out in any reasonable space of time. That boy will be the death of me,' thundered paternity, in the shape of Mr Flyntey Harte, who had come ravening homeward for his dinner, and whose acerbities were therefore in a high state of activity. My dear, why don't you hush him up at once?' added he, giving force to the idea by a dumb motion,' pantomimic of the spank. He can't be hushed up, as you call it,' replied Mrs Flyntey Harte. 'I'm sure it's not my fault-no mother pays more attention to her children than I do-I've been slapping him and shaking him, off and on, for the whole blessed morning,' and she immediately offered a few samples of both methods of operation; but in spite of all I can do he is as bad as bad can be yet. I can't think, for my part, what the brat would have.' 'Pshaw!' retorted old Mr Flyntey Harte; you women never know how to manage a child-let me at him a minute!' and Flyntey went at him with a zeal probably deserving of better success; but little Flyntey Harte continued, notwithstanding all the parental care lavished upon him, to roar and to whine alternately, until he fell fast asleep through weariness and exhaustion. twice if not thrice a-day-and yet popular report set him down proverbially as the worst lad in the neighbourhood. Was it not strange that such should be the discouraging result of so much toil of arm and expenditure of strap, and that the only advantage derived by either of the parties should be merely deducible from the exercise? Not an hour passed that it was not announced to little Flyntey, formally or informally, that his wickedness was beyond all other wickedness; and little Flyntey took it as a matter of course, that he was wicked, that he must be wicked, and wicked he therefore was to all intents and purposes; no good being expected from him, which, we take it, in a stout constitution, either for evil or its opposite, is as sure a way as any of making it certain that no good will come. Might just as well enjoy myself,' said little Flyntey; they don't expect any better from me.' It was astonishing to both father and mother that Flyntey had no instinctive notions about meum and tuum; and that he should have come into the world so surpris ingly ignorant of the fundamental principles of the social compact, as to lay his unhallowed hands on whatever he wanted; and we are constrained to admit that a knowledge of the rights of property was not spontaneous in his infant mind; so that if he desired to have a thing, it was most likely, if occasion served, that he would take that very thing, putting it either into his mouth or into his pocket, with no very serious visitations of remorse, for having gone contrary to the statutes. We cannot well account for it, but there is no contending against the fact, made apparent so frequently, that Flyntey's propensities, appetites, and inclinations, were developed in advance of his reasoning and restraining powers. Was he not a wicked one, the little Flyntey, not to comprehend, as soon as his eyes were open, that people on this earth are not to do exactly as they like; and what are we to expect from that childhood, like Flyntey's, which could not at once anticipate the wisdom gathered by years? Of course, there was but one recipe for expediting his intellectual progress, and many chastisements were invoked to ripen conscience, and to expand causality. 'Let that alone, you Flyntey!' And why must I let it alone? I want that-I will have that!' 'Because, if you dont let it alone, I'll whip you within an inch of your life-I will, you thief!' Flyntey Harte could only understand from this admonition, not so much that it was his duty and his best interest to resist the impulses of his acquisitiveness, as that it was his policy so to regulate them as to 'scape whipping.' He saw nothing more than the arbitrary will of another and a stronger, based upon barefaced power, arraying itself against the cravings of his own individual will, and condescending to no kindly explanations of its conduct; and little Flyntey, unconvinced, called in the flexibilities of insincerity and cunning, to enable him to creep round obstacles that he could not directly surmount. The petty larceny, in consequence, bloomed into one of his choicest accomplishments. Nay, even when detection was inevitable, he weighed and balanced the good with the evil. If the pleasure of attaining his end seemed to transcend the torment of the penalty, he enjoyed the one at the cost of the other, and looked upon himself as a gainer by the bargain. Thus ended one day in the life of little Flyntey Harte, The reasoning, perhaps, may be regarded as soundthis one day exposing with clearness the principle on which there is no doubt whatever that the whipping to which it his domestic education was conducted, and perhaps, like-pointed was, in general, sound enough-but yet little wise, affording a glimpse of the results to which it led. His parents had no other method of training intellect and of forming character than that which may be described as the system of terrorism; and, with the best intentions in the world, to 'terrorism' they resorted upon all occasions of difficulty. It seemed to simplify the problem so, and to condense, as it were, all the perplexing theories of youthful cultivation into a plain and practical doctrine, capable of being applied on the instant, and under any circumstances whatever. There was a saving, too, of time, and care, and thought, in coming to the comfortable conclusion that the wisest way of bringing little Flyntey up was to knock little Flyntey down. It levelled the difficulty at once, besides being so wholesome and pleasant to the instructor, who, in this view of the subject, is under no obligation to suppress wrath, or to restrain the emotions of impatience. On the contrary, it seems to be a permission to slap away, right and left, killing two birds with one stone, by at once gratifying your own pugnacity, and giving your pupil an impulse forward in the walks of useful knowledge. But it must be confessed, however, unfortunately both for the theory here alluded to, and for little Flyntey Harte himself, that while no boy ever had more pains' bestowed upon him in the processes of education, it is also true that no boy ever yielded more pains' in return-as if it were on a principle of poetical justice that caused the sowing and the reaping to be somewhat similar in kind. Flyntey was 'corrected' every day of his existence-sometimes Another singular result soon manifested itself. Little Flyntey Harte, though himself fresh, as it were, from the sorrows of affliction, and from the griefs of infliction, proved to be a tyrant and an oppressor-very cruel and very bar barous to all who were unable to defend themselves-he moved a terror to the smaller children, and a horror to the cats and dogs. He had, somehow or other-can you imagine how?-gathered one generalisation into his magazine of maxims, that pain of a corporeal nature is the great actuating impulse of the world, and that it should be em |