returning rather improved, but with his lungs full of tubercles. For many years, his life hung as by a thread, and it was only by his careful observance of the laws of health, that he was enabled to survive. In his work on The Principles of Physiology, speaking of the advantages experienced in his own person of paying implicit obedience to the physiological laws, he says, "Had he not been fully aware of the gravity of his own situation, and, from previous knowledge of the admirable adaptation of the physiological laws to carry on the machinery of life, disposed to place implicit reliance on the superior advantages of fulfilling them as the direct dictates of Divine Wisdom, he would never have been able to persevere in the course chalked out for him, with that ready and long-enduring regularity and cheerfulness which have contributed so much to their successful fulfilment and results. And therefore, he feels himself entitled to call upon those who, impatient at the slowness of their progress, are apt after a time to disregard all restrictions,-to take a sounder view of their true position, to make themselves acquainted with the real dictates of the organic laws; and having done so, to yield them full, implicit, and persevering obedience, in the certain assurance that they will reap their reward in renewed health, if recovery be still possible; and if not, that they will thereby obtain more peace of mind and bodily ease than by any other means which they can

use.

Dr. Combe's first published book was on Phrenology applied to the treatment of Insanity: it was given to the world in 1831, and proved quite successful, being soon ont of print. His second book was on The Principles of Physiology, some chapters of which were first published in the Phrenological Journal. This book was published in 1834. Among the booksellers it was regarded with aversion. It was one of the successful books which booksellers sometimes reject. The first edition of 750 copies, and a second edition of 1000 copies, both printed at the author's expense, were sold off; when Dr. Combe offered to dispose of the copyright to John Murray, without naming terms. Mr. Murray, and all the other London publishers who were applied to, declined to have anything to do with the purchase of the copyright; and the author went on publishing the book at his own expense. We need scarcely say that the book had a great run: about 30,000 copies were sold in this country, besides numerous editions in the United States.

Although Dr. Combe was enabled at intervals to resume his practice in Edinburgh, he found it necessary to leave it from to time for the benefits of a continental residence; until in 1836, he was induced to accept the appointment of physician to the king of the Belgians, believing that a residence at Brussels might possibly suit his constitution. But his health again gave way on reaching Brussels, and he was shortly under the necessity of giving up the appointment, preserving, however, the honorary office of consulting physician to the Belgian Court. During the leisure which the cessation from professional pursuits afforded him, he prepared his next work on the Physiology of Digestion, another highly successful book. And in 1840, appeared his last work, on The Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy. All these books have had a large circulation in this country and in America; besides having been translated and circulated largely in continental countries.

In 1841, Dr. Combe was again attacked with hæmoptysis, or discharge of blood from the lungs, and fell into a state of gradual and steady decline. As he himself said, "I believe I am going slowly

and gently down hill." He continued, however, to live for several years. In 1842 and 1843, he paid two visits to Madeira, and spent some time in Italy; and in the two following years he was enabled to travel about, a pallid invalid, taking a deep interest meanwhile, in all useful public and social movements. His judgment seemed to grow stronger, and his insight into men and things clearer, as his bodily powers decayed. On all topics connected with education, as his correspondence shows, he took an especially lively interest; and we might here quote many passages from his letters full of strong sagacious good sense on this subject, did our space permit. In 1847, he made a voyage to New York, chiefly for the purpose of visiting his brother William, who had long been settled in the States; but the heat of the climate proved too trying for his enfeebled constitution, and he almost immediatly took ship again for England. The last literary labour in which he engaged was thoroughly characteristic of the man. While in the States, he had been sickened with the accounts which the ravages of the ship fever had made among the poor Irish emigrants, and he determined to bring the whole subject before the public in an article in the Times. Writing to a corn merchant in Liverpool, on his return home, for information as to the regulations of emigrant ships, he said, "I have not yet regained either my ordinary health or power of thinking, and, consequently, find writing rather heavy work; but my spirit is moved by the horrible details from Quebec and New York, and I cannot rest without doing something in the matter." The letter in which this passage occurred was the last that Dr. Combe wrote. His article had meanwhile been hastily prepared, and it appeared in the Times, of 17th September, 1847, occupying nearly three columns of the paper. He was interrupted, even while he was writing it, by a severe attack of diarrhea, from which he died after a few days illness, on the 9th of August, 1817. His dying hours were peaceful, and the last words he uttered, when he could scarcely articulate, were 66 Happy, happy!"

Such is a brief outline of the life of an eminently useful man, who, without the aid of any brilliant qualities, and merely by the exercise of industry, good sense, and well-cultivated moral feelings, was enabled to effect a large amount of good during his lifetime, and to beneficially influence the condition of mankind, it may be for many generations to come.

A NEW AMERICAN POET.

THE appearance of a new poet in any country is a great event; it is a circumstance to be noted and worthily commemorated. The poet,-as a creator of beauty, as the teacher of lofty sentiments, as the utterer of noble thoughts,-is one of the greatest gifts that can be conferred upon a people destined to influence the thoughts, feelings, and character of ages unborn.

America has already done much for poetry; she has given us Longfellow and Emerson, Bryant, Whittier, Lowell, and many more; and now she has given us the youngest and most promising of all the poets of America in Thomas Buchanan Read, whose little book of Poems, illustrated by Kenny Meadows, is now before us.* Like most of the other American poets, he is strongly imitative; and we often recog nise in his verses the echoes of our most favourite English authors. But Mr. Read has nevertheless a

* Poems; by Thomas Buchanan Read. Illustrated by Kenny Meadows. London: Delf and Trübner.

decided poetic nature of his own; he is strongly imbued with the poetic genius, and he has the seeing eye, the feeling heart, and the inspired intellect of the true poet. He has not only culture and feeling, but an intense appreciation of beauty, and a genuine ear for music. As with most young poets, he is sensuous as well as spiritual; he loves beauty, and, so loving, he paints it in his poems. But we especially admire his landscape pictures; his "little bits" of scenery, as artists term them, are especially charming. Such subjects as "The Wayside Spring," "The Deserted Road," "Hazel Dell," and such like, remind you of Creswick and Redgrave's effects with the pencil, in their happiest moods. He cannot help painting nature, and ever speaks through its manifold aspects in the manner of the true poet. Take, for instance, the following verses, "in memory of a poet," entitled

NIGHTFALL.

I saw, in the silent afternoon,

The overladen sun go down;
While, in the opposing sky, the moon,
Between the steeples of the town,

Went upward, like a golden scale
Outweighed by that which sank beyond ;
And over the river, and over the vale,
With odours from the lily-pond,
The purple vapours calmly swung ;
And, gathering in the twilight trees,
The many-vesper minstrels sung

Their plaintive mid-day memories,
Till, one by one, they dropped away
From music into slumber deep,
And now the very woodlands lay,

Folding their shadowy wings in sleep.
Oh, Peace! that like a vesper psalm
Hallows the daylight at its close;
Oh, Sleep! that like the vapours calm,
Mantles the spirit in repose,-

Through all the twilight falling dim,
Through all the song which passed away,
Ye did not stoop your wings to him
Whose shallop on the river lay
Without an oar, without a helm ;-

His great soul in his marvellous eyes
Gazing on from realm to realm,

Through all the world of mysteries!

These verses are most musical and beautiful; some may say they remind us of In Memoriam, but they are not the less delicious on that account. But there is a poem in the book entitled "The Closing Scene,' which any poet might be proud to own. We do not know any verses with which the following could be compared, excepting the famous lines by Gray, "written in a country churchyard." This picture is quite as fine of its kind, and the rhythm of the verses may almost be pronounced perfect :

Within his sober realm of leafless trees

The russet year inhaled the dreamy air;
Like some tanned reaper in his hour of ease,
When all the fields are lying brown and bare.
The grey barns looking from their hazy hills
O'er the dim waters widening in the vales,
Sent down the air a grecting to the mills
On the dull thunder of alternate flails.

All sights were mellowed, and all sounds subdued,
The hills seemed farther, and the streams sang low;
As in a dream, the distant woodman hewed
His winter log with many a muffled blow.
The embattled forests, erewhile armed'in gold,
Their banners bright with every martial hue,
Now stood, like some sad beaten host of old,
Withdrawn afar in Time's remotest blue.

On slumbrous wings the vulture hied his flight,
The dove scarce heard his sighing mate's complaint;
And like a star slow drowning in the light,

The village church-vane seemed to pale and faint.

The sentinel-cock upon the hill-side crew-
Crew thrice, and all was stiller than before,-
Silent till some replying warder blew

His alien horn, and then was heard no more.
Where erst the jay, within the elm's tall crest,
Made garrulous trouble round her unfledged young,
And where the oriole hung her swaying nest,
By every light wind like a censer swung ;-
Where every bird which charmed the vernal feast
Shook the sweet slumber from its wings at morn,
To warn the reaper of the rosy east,-

All now was songless, empty, and forlorn. There was no bud, no bloom upon the bowers; The spiders wove their thin shrouds night by night; The thistledown, the only ghost of flowers, Sailed slowly by, passed noiseless out of sight. Amid all this, in this most cheerless air,

And where the woodbine shed upon the porch Its crimson leaves, as if the Year stood there Firing the air with his inverted torch ;

Amid all this, the centre of the scene,

The white-haired matron, with monotonous tread, Plied the swift wheel, and with her joyless mien, Sat, like a Fate, and watched the flying thread. She had known Sorrow,-he had walked with her, Oft supped, and broke the bitter ashen crust; And in the dead leaves still she heard the stir Of his black mantle trailing in the dust.

Long, but not loud, the droning wheel went on,
Like the low murmur of a hive at noon;
Long, but not loud, the memory of the gone
Breathed through her lips a sad and tremulous tune.
At last the thread was snapped,-her head was bowed;
Life dropped the distaff through his hands serene,--
And loving neighbours smoothed her careful shroud,
While Death and Winter closed the autumn scene.

This is truly a beautiful poem, full of truth, nature, and philosophy. It is a complete picture, painted in words, musical and melancholy. It is the vibration of a true poet's soul, tremulous as the strings of an Eolian harp to the breathings of nature. In lines of stately measure, and of luscious sweetness, Mr. Read is equally at his ease. We can only afford room for another specimen in a different style, taken from his portrait-gallery of beautiful women; it is entitled

AURELIA.

Where flamed a field of flowers,-and where
Sang noisy birds and brooks,—

Aurelia to the frolic air
Shook down her wanton waves of hair,
With laughter-loving looks.
Her large and lustrous eyes of bluc,
Dashed with the dew of mirth,
Bequeathed to all their brilliant hue;
She saw no shades, nor even knew
She walked the heavy earth.
Her ringing laughter woke the dells
When fell the autumn blight ;-
She sang through all the rainy spells-
For her the snow was full of bells
Of music and delight.

She swept on her bewildering way
By every pleasure kissed,-
Making a mirth of night and day;
A brook, all sparkle and all spray,
Dancing itself to mist.

I love all bright and happy things,
And joys which are not brief;

All sights and sounds whence pleasure springs,—
But weary of the harp whose strings

Are never tuned to grief.

We might also quote his "Beggar of Naples," which is in another very happy style; "Inez," a charming ballad; "The Swiss Street-singers; and " Rosalie," a tale of great pathos and delicacy. But we must conclude, though we cannot yet take leave of the book without quoting one more piece, full of pictorial beauty.

THE SUMMER SHOWER.

Before the stout harvesters falleth the grain,

As when the strong storm-wind is reaping the plain;
And loiters the boy in the briery lane;

But yonder aslant comes the silvery rain,
Like a long line of spears, brightly burnished and tall.

Adown the white highway, like cavalry fleet,

It dashes the dust with its numberless feet. Like a murmurless school, in their leafy retreat, The wild birds sit listening the drops round them beat; And the boy crouches close to the blackberry wall.

The swallows alone take the storm on their wing, And, taunting the tree-sheltered labourers, sing. Like pebbles the rain breaks the face of the spring, While a bubble darts up from each widening ring; And the boy, in dismay, hears the loud shower fall.

But soon are the harvesters tossing the sheaves; The robin darts out from its bower of leaves; The wren peereth forth from the moss-covered eaves; And the rain-spattered urchin now gladly perceives That the beautiful bow bendeth over them all.

From these specimens our readers will perceive that the new American poet is really a young man of much promise, whose future progress deserves to be watched with interest and hope. Thomas Buchanan Read may yet be a great name in America, and he is so thoroughly English in his sympathies and sentiments, that he cannot fail to have many admirers in this country.

INTELLIGENT WOMEN NOT "MUDDLERS."

Amongst some of these popular mistakes that I am myself outliving, is the idea that women distinguished by their literary or scientific attainments are necessarily untidy in their persons, or inefficient in their housekeeping; while those destitute of information or accomplishments are, on that account, certain to be orderly and industrious, the best wives and mothers in the world, and the least likely to bring themselves or their belongings into a muddle. Where the instances existed which must have given rise to such an opinion I cannot learn, the experience of my own circle of friends being entirely against its truth; and even the few who yet cling to the union of mental ability and domestic stupidity as the rule, are obliged to acknowledge so many bright exceptions that, like "the ingenuous Mrs. Malaprop, their arguments are chiefly to the advantage of their opponents." Indeed, I think I may confidently appeal to general and particular observa. tion, whether the hostess in whose company her guests have yawned the most has given them the best appointed dinners; or if the women most equal to be the friends and companions of their husbands, and instructresses to their children, have been the least successful housekeepers? I ask all to remember, not the opinions they have heard, but the facts and families that they have seen, and then I believe they will have no difficulty in coming to the following conclusion:That disorder and distress are not brought into a household by the presence of intellect and talent in its mistress, but by the absence of certain qualities and virtues, without which neither knowledge nor ability can avail to secure happiness. The women who bring muddle into their husband's hearts and homes are such as want that instinctive sense of comfort and propriety which, like a genial sun or purer atmosphere, causes the meanest things beneath its influence to look cheerful and agreeable,-part and parcel of the undefined sentiments of peace and pleasure that take possession of our being as we move and rest amongst them. Oh, more than magic wand, or fairy talisman, this truly feminine endowment! The maiden who can bring it as her portion will need no other dowry; the humblest parlour into which she enters will shine like an enchanted palace; the dreariest prison-cell, if visited by her transforming touch,

will reflect a feeling of the comfortable parlour. Wherever this sweet household charm approaches, thence poverty and melancholy fly; wherever it is wanting, there ruin and dejection dwell. Want of judgment, and especially of that branch of judgment distinguished as "the power of putting two ideas together," is another striking characteristic of the persons who are always "in a muddle." So many circumstances occur which we can neither anticipate nor control, and which require a modification of our actions corresponding to the unforeseen emergency, that a person who is incapable of qualifying idea No. 1 to match with idea No. 2 will often do more mischief with the one idea than if actually destitute of any. Now, most of a woman's occupations, if they are to be creditably performed, demand a combination of several ideas, and a prompt combination too; and the mistress who is incapable of this must frequently be in difficulty and distress, overwhelmed by all she should direct or conquer, and unable to fulfil her more general and easy duties by the accumulations left from yesterdays of extra thought and care. The woman who wants judgment will always be "in a muddle." Want of energy is another great and common cause of the want of domestic comfort: as the best laid fire can give no heat and cook no food unless it is lighted, so the clearest ideas and purest intentions will produce no corresponding actions without that energy that gives power to all that is of value, which is, as it were, the very life of life, and which is never more necessary or available than in the mistress and mother of a family. Those who have it not,-and many are constitutionally destitute of it,-would do well to inquire of their experience and their conscience, what compensating vir tues they can bring into the marriage state to justify them in entering on its duties without that which is so essential to their performance. They should consider that the pretty face and graceful languor, which, as it is often especially attractive to the most impetuous of the other sex, gained them ardent lovers, will not enable them to satisfy the innumerable requisitions, and to secure the social happiness of the fidgetty and exacting husbands, into which characters ardent and impetuous lovers are generally transformed. Let them take warning from those examples amongst their acquaintances where love and laziness had been the bride's only contributions towards housekeeping, which of the passions conquered? for the co-existence of both, for long together, is impossible. Alas! the love too speedily departed; the indolence gained strength. Is their love of the kind that has conquered and must conquer, or is their indolence the victorious power? if the latter, their fate, as married women, is but to swell the melancholy number of those whose sole vocation in the world appears to be to add to its misery and children, either to sink under responsibilities too great for them, or to survive in helpless vegetation, the scorn of all who should respect them, the aversion of those by whom they should be loved and cherished. Surely it would be better for themselves, as well as their connections, that such women should yawn and dawdle on in "single blessedness;" adding, perhaps beneficially, to the moral vis inertia of the world, for want of which the more energetic part thereof must fly off into space indefinite, than that they should found additional establishments for muddle, and bring fresh victims to her altars.-Home Truths for Home Peace.

YANKEE TOPERS.

Agreeably to the Yankee habit, under whatever circumstances, the deportment of all these good fellows, old or young, was decorous and thoroughly correct. They grew only the more sober in their

cups; there was no confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked in the joyous fire of the decanters, and kept it smouldering in their inmost recesses, with a bliss known only to the heart which it warmed and comforted. Their eyes twinkled a little, to be sure; they hemmed vigorously after each glass, and laid a hand upon the pit of the stomach, as if the pleasant titillation there was what constituted the tangible part of their enjoyment. In that spot, unquestionably, and not in the brain, was the acme of the whole affair. But the true purpose of their drinking and one that will induce men to drink, or do something equivalent, as long as this weary world shall endure -was the renewed youth and vigour, the brisk, cheerful sense of things present and to come, with which, for about a quarter of an hour, the dram permeated their systems. And when such quarters of an hour can be obtained in some mode less baneful to the great sum of a man's life-but, nevertheless, with a little spice of impropriety, to give it a wild flavour-we temperance people may ring out our bells for victory.-Hawthorne's Blithedale Romance.

FLOWERS FROM FOREIGN LANDS. FLOWERS from foreign lands, bring them not near me, Lovely to gaze upon though they may be ; Soulless and scentless, they never can cheer me, No fond remembrance can 'waken for me. Bring me the treasures that grow in the wild wood, Those simple flowrets that many despise,They bring to mind all the friends of my childhood, They are the blossoms alone that I prize.

Songs in a foreign tongue sing not before me, Sweet though their tones be, they cannot impart One recollection, one feeling restore me,

Like the sweet music that comes from the heart. Sing me the songs that in infancy cheered me,

Songs that we learnt 'mid our old household mirth, They were the strains that to music endeared me,— That still bring to mind all the loved ones of earth. J. E. CARPENTER.

AUSTRALIAN WEATHER.

In Australia no one appears to fear the sun, even at midsummer. One sees masons and roofers employed for eight or ten hours a day exposed to its full blaze; they are burnt so brown as hardly to be recog nized as Europeans, yet their health is not damaged. I once asked an old man who had just descended from the roof of a tavern, where he had been all day employed, with his basket of shingles and tomahawk, whether the sun did not make him ill?

"Oh no,

Sir," said he, "I'd never take no harm on the outside of a house; it is the inside of a house like this where the mischief to the likes of me comes from." He had been a teetotaller for twelve years, and had never had a headache since he took the pledge. One of our old essayists defends the English practice of making the weather the first theme of conversation. Contrasting it with some other matters of common interest, he says, "The weather is a nobler and more interesting subject; it is the present state of the skies and of the earth, on which plenty or famine are suspended, on which millions depend for the necessaries of life." In New South Wales the words

a fine day," as part of a salutation, are absurdly expletive, and have therefore become obsolete, a fine day being a mere matter of course. Sunshine is the rule, clouds the exception. Yet, with all its beauties, the Australian climate, taken as a whole, is hard, glaring, almost withering in its excessive aridity. If it does not prompt to languor and listlessness, like that of some other southern countries, neither is there anything voluptuous in it. Byron's dictum regarding "what men call gallantry," and "climates sultry," does not hold good, I think, with regard to New South Wales. It is an indirect libel upon it-happily! Perhaps, however, so businesslike a people would not be sentimental, romantic, poetical, or amorous, under any skiey influences! The winter season and the autumn mornings are thoroughly delightful; I often think how much we shall miss them when we have lost them. Yet after all-bigot that I am-welcome, thrice welcome! misty atmosphere, "lacklustre" skies of "my own, my native land." When the sun does shine there he shines on landscapes that, in my eyes at least, have no counterpart. There are days, I well remember (little as I have lived in England), which no climate or country can equal in loveliness-more delicious than any others-anywhere else-under any circumstances.-Mundy's "Our Antipodes."

THE AMERICAN CHARACTER.

The American sets less value on life than Europeans; that is, he does not think the loss of life the greatest loss, the ultimatum. When a man dies, you see none of that sentiment (I use the best term I can think of) which surrounds such an event in older countries. The American is silent in manner, embarrassingly so at first, extremely accurate in his observation of human nature, and any man that cannot bear to be scrutinized, had better not come here. The American judges much by the eye, and has a most enviable power of estimation; your temperament, speech, look, and act, are all taken in by him; and if you can get at the tablet of his judgment, you will find a remarkable daguerreotype of your exact worth written thereon. They are phrenologists and physiognomists, not merely as philosophers, but as practical appliers of those inductive sciences; and, beneath a show of positive laziness or languor there is an amount of energy and action, mental and physical, perfectly surprising. They are not averse to the higher branches of science and literature, but they bend all to utility, and are, as a nation, the best arithmeticians in the world; and this science alone gives a terse matter-of-fact tone to their mental working; in fact, when a man wants to reflect on a proposition, he says, "Wait till I figure up."Casey's Two Years on the Farm of Uncle Sam.

WELCOME HOME.

Let me especially recommend to a young wife a considerate attention to what her husband will require when he comes home, before he comes home, in order that, on his return, she may have nothing to do but to share in the comfort and enjoyment for which she has provided, and may not be running about after his usual and reasonable requirements, exposed to his reproaches for her negligence, and to those of her own conscienee, if she have any. -Home Truths for Home Peace

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

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES.

IT cannot be denied that Providence has in reality assigned a proper place for every individual that helps to make up the sum of the population of the universe.

Whether circumstances, or a combination of we know not what causes, have suffered him to reach it is another matter, but taking a rapid view of society as it now exists, it would seem, as if by some sudden retrogression of nature, every man and every family had been thrown a step in the rear, and were hurrying forward to regain it, so eager is the chase after a higher position in the social scale than that assigned them by fortune. Every one-no matter what his means-aims at displaying the peculiarities and distinctions of those more wealthy than himself. Mrs. B, who lives in that semi-genteel cottage à la cockney Gothic, must have a country house, not because she can afford it, but because Mrs. Cdoes. Mrs. R- must go the sea-side, not because it will benefit her own health or the children's, but because of the remarks the neighbours will make if she does not go, when there is Mrs. L, with not half the apparent means, has taken her whole family to flash away at Brighton, or rusticate on the pier at Margate; and so on does the round of imitation go, until men and women are resolved into so many artificial machines, all intent on outdoing their neighbours, or following in their wake-just to "keep up appearances."

It is the nature of the greater part of mankind to grasp at everything placed within their reach. A gilded bauble strikes and fascinates the eye; to look on the beautiful is very often to desire to possess it; the contemplation of perfect leisure on the part of others awakens the wish for it in ourselves,-to see others rolling in wealth, kindles an insatiable thirst after it; to behold the circle of our neighbours flashing in sumptuous apparel, suggests very often a similar indulgence on our own part.

Each grade of society gazes upward to the class above, and perceiving the immunities they who compose it enjoy, in a smaller necessity of labour, a more abundant partaking of the luxuries of life, would fain adorn itself with the gay trappings they assume in order that they themselves may at all events seem to be numbered with this more polished

[PRICE 14d.

race. Not content with their own domestic affluence, where in moderation every wish is fulfilled, the aspiring family must now add to the daily economy a carriage they cannot afford to keep,-a livery servant that must constitute an hourly reproach,-give dashing dinners and parties, and cloak over what is very often future ruin by placid smiles upon the countenance, and satins or jewelry on the person, and this only that they may by a species of perpetual hypocrisy, appear to be what they are not.

It is vulgar and common to stand boldly and with sincerity before the world, working with head or hand in order honourably to support an existence bestowed upon us by God; therefore, instead of casting our strong and noble energies into the real labour necessary to reach the goal, we would persuade the world that we are children the most favoured by fortune, and have arrived at our destination and conclusion of our toils before in reality we have commenced them.

No one is satisfied at being thought, without injustice, to occupy the position in which we discover him; there is always some particular reason why he was not elevated in the social scale,-either his family, though ancient, and formerly rich, has been by some extraordinary combination of circumstances, age by age, decreased in its market value; or he himself, perhaps, in his youth neglected some opportunity which he confidently assures us would have enabled him to cut quite a different figure in the world. Thus, the very Rev. Theodore Larkins would have been archbishop of Canterbury, if-something, in fact, had not happened to prevent it. Mr. Thomas Smith would have enjoyed an independent property -have possessed large estates, if some distant relative had not unfortunately offended some other very distant relative, who, thereupon, left his enormous wealth to some other branch of the family. Mr. Denley would have been heir to the great estate of in Shropshire, which by some egregious mistake is now owned by Sir Somebody Else, if William the Conqueror had not stepped over from Normandy on that very fine morning, and created so much confusion in people's estates and property, that no Chancery Court has been able to disentangle them since.

There was an old lady of our acquaintance, living in very small apartments, and in a very small way