Each German has his house, his orchard, his road-side trees, so laden with fruit, that if he did not carefully prop up, and tie together, and in many places hold the boughs together with wooden clamps, they would be torn asunder by their own weight. He has his corn-plot, his plot for mangel-wurzel or hay, for potatoes, for hemp, etc. He is his own master, and he therefore, and every branch of his family, have the strongest motives for constant exertion. You see the effect of this in his industry and his economy.

In Germany, nothing is lost. The produce of the trees and the cows is carried to market. Much fruit is dried for winter use. You see wooden trays of plums, cherries, and sliced apples, lying in the sun to dry. You see strings of them hanging from their chamber windows in the sun. The cows are kept up for the greater part of the year, and every green thing is collected for them. Every little nook where the grass prows by roadside, and river, and brook, is carefully cut with the sickle, and carried home, on the heads of women and children, in baskets, or tied in large cloths. Nothing of any kind that can possibly be made of any use is lost. Weeds, nettles, nay, the very goose-grass which covers waste places, is cut up and taken for the cows. You see the little children standing in the streets of the villages, in the streams which generally run down them, busy washing these weeds before they are given to the cattle. They carefully collect the leaves of the marsh-grass, carefully cut their potato tops for them, and even, if other things fail, gather green leaves from the woodlands. One can not help thinking continually of the enormous waste of such things in England—of the vast quantities of grass on banks, by roadsides, in the openings of plantations, in lanes, in church-yards, where grass from year to year springs and dies, but which, if carefully cut, would maintain many thousand cows for the poor.

To pursue still further this subject of German economy. The very cuttings of the vines are dried and preserved for winter fodder. The tops and refuse of the hemp serve as bedding for the cows; nay, even the rough stalks of the poppies, after the heads have been gathered for oil, are saved, and all these are converted into manure for the land. When these are not sufficient, the children are sent into the woods to gather moss; and all our readers familiar with Germany will remember to have seen them coming homeward with large bundles of this on their heads. In autumn, the falling leaves are gathered and stocked for the same purpose. The fir-cones, which with us lie and rot in the woods, are carefully collected, and sold for lighting fires.

In short, the economy and care of the German peasant are an example to all Europe. He has for years—nay, ages—been doing that, as it regards agricultural management, to which the British public is but just now beginning to open its eyes. Time, also, is as carefully economized as every thing else. They are early risers, as may well be conceived, when the children, many of whom come from considerable distances, are in school at six in the morning. As they tend their cattle, or their swine, the knitting never ceases, and hence the quantities of stockings, and other household things, which they accumulate, are astonishing.

We could not help, as often before, being struck in the Odenwald with the resemblance of the present country and life of the Germans to those of the ancient Hebrews. Germany, like Judea, is literally a land flowing with milk and honey: a land of corn, and vine, and oil. The plains are full of corn; the hill-sides, however stony, are green with vineyards; and though they have not the olive, they procure vast quantities of oil from the walnut, the poppy, and the rape. The whole country is parceled out among its people. There are no hedges, but the landmarks, against the removal of which the Jewish law so repeatedly and so emphatically denounces its terrors, alone indicate the boundaries of each man's possession. Every where you see the ox and the heifer toiling beneath the primitive yoke, as in the days of David. The threshing-floor of Araunah often comes to your mind when you see the different members of a family—father, mother, brother, and sister, all threshing out their corn together on the mud floor of their barn; but much more so when you see them, in the corn-field itself, collect the sheaves into one place, and treading down the earth into a solid floor, there, in the face of heaven and fanned by its winds, thresh out on the spot the corn which has been cut. This we saw continually going forward on the steep slopes of the Odenwald, ten or a dozen men and women all threshing together. A whole field is thus soon threshed, the corn being beaten out much more easily while the ear is crisp with the hot sun.

Having taken leave of the schoolmaster, his scholars, and his bees, with whose hives nearly all his house-side was covered, we pursued our way to the Jaegerhaus on the top of the Felsberg, one of the highest hills in the Odenwald. The day was splendid, with a fine breeze, and all around was new, cheerful, yet solitary, bright and inspiriting. The peasants in the harvest-fields, the herds watching their cattle, gave us a passing salutation, and when within sight of you, took off their hats, even at a field's distance. We walked on in great enjoyment, here sitting to look back on the scenes we had left, or to drink from the glittering waters that we had to pass.

Just as we were about to enter the woods again, we met an old woman slowly wandering on from some cottages among the trees by the wood-side. She had a leathern belt round her waist, and a cord fastened to it, by which she led her cow to graze in the thickets and by the foot-path, while her hands were busy with her knitting. A boy, about seven years old, was leading a kid by a chain, letting it crop the flowers of the hawkweed in the grass. The old woman saluted us cheerfully; told us that the boy's father was in America, and his mother gone out to service, and that he was intrusted to her care. Could there be any thing more like a scene in the old Maerchen, or less like one in England?



[From Howitt's Country Year-Book.]

THE MYSTERIOUS PREACHER.

In one of those strolls which I have always loved to take into different and little frequented parts of these kingdoms, I fell in with a venerable old man, dressed in black, with very white hair, and of a mild, somewhat melancholy and intelligent look. It was a beautiful scene where I first encountered him—in a wood, on the banks of a noble river. I accosted the old man with a remark on the delightfulness of the time and place; and he replied to my observations with a warmth, and in a tone, which strongly affected me. I soon found that he was as enthusiastic a lover of nature as myself—that he had seen many of the finest portions of the kingdom, and had wandered through them with Milton or Shakspeare, Herbert or Quarles, in his hand. He was one of those who, reading with his own eyes and heart, and not through the spectacles of critics, had not been taught to despise the last old poet, nor to treat his rich and quaint versification, and his many manly and noble thoughts, as the conceits and rhymes of a poetaster. His reverence for the great names of our literature, and his just appreciation of their works, won upon me greatly. I invited him to continue his walk; and—so well was I pleased with him—to visit me at my rustic lodgment.

From that day, for some weeks, we daily walked together. I more and more contemplated with admiration and esteem the knowledge, the fine taste, the generous sentiments, the profound love of nature which seemed to fill the whole being of the old man. But who and whence was he? He said not a word on that subject, and I did not, therefore, feel freedom to inquire. He might have secret griefs, which such a query might awaken. I respect too much the wounded heart of humanity carelessly to probe it, and especially the heart of a solitary being who, in the downward stage of life, may, perchance, be the stripped and scathed remnant of a once-endeared family. He stood before me alone. He entered into reminiscences, but they were reminiscences connected with no near ties; but had such ties now existed, he would in some hour of frank enthusiasm have said so. He did not say it, and it was, therefore, sufficiently obvious, that he had a history which he left down in the depths of his heart, beyond the vision of all but that heart itself. And yet, whatever were the inward memories of this venerable man, there was a buoyancy and youthfulness of feeling about him which amply manifested that they had not quenched the love and enjoyment of life in him.

On different days we took, during the most beautiful spring, strolls of many miles into distant dales and villages, and on the wild brown moors. Now we sate by a moorland stream, talking of many absorbing things in the history of the poetry and the religion of our country, and I could plainly see that my ancient friend had in him the spirit of an old Covenanter, and that, had he lived in the days of contest between the church of kings and the church of God, he would have gone to the field or the stake for his faith as triumphantly as any martyr of those times. It was under the influence of one of these conversations that I could not avoid addressing to the old man the following youthful stanzas, which, though they may exhibit little poetry, testify to the patriotism which his language inspired:

My friend! there have been men To whom we turn again After contemplating the present age, And long, with vain regret, That they were living yet, Virtue's high war triumphantly to wage.

Men whose renown was built Not on resplendent guilt— Not through life's waste, or the abuse of power, But by the dauntless zeal With which at truth's appeal, They stood unto the death in some eventful hour.

But he who now shall deem, Because among us seem No dubious symptoms of a realm's decline— Wealth blind with its excess 'Mid far-diffused distress, And pride that kills, professing to refine—

He who deems hence shall flow The utter overthrow Of this most honored and long happy land, Little knows what there lies Even beneath his eyes, Slumbering in forms that round about him stand.

Little knows he the zeal Myriads of spirits feel In love, pure principle, and knowledge strong; Little knows he what men Tread this dear land again, Whose souls of fire invigorate the throng.

My friend! I lay with thee Beneath the forest tree, When spring was shedding her first sweets around. And the bright sky above Woke feelings of deep love, And thoughts which traveled through the blue profound.

I lay, and as I heard— The joyful faith thus stirred, Shot like Heaven's lightning through my wondering breast I heard, and in my thought Glory and greatness wrought, And blessing God—my native land I blest.

Now we entered a village inn, and ate our simple luncheon; and now we stood in some hamlet lane, or by its mossy well, with a group of children about us, among whom not a child appeared more child-like or more delighted than the old man. Nay, as we came back from a fifteen or twenty miles' stroll, he would leap over a stile with the activity of a boy, or run up to a wilding bush, covered with its beautiful pink blossoms, and breaking off a branch hold it up in admiration, and declare that it appeared almost sinful for an old man like him to enjoy himself so keenly. I know not when I more deeply felt the happiness and the holiness of existence, the wealth of intellect, and the blessings of our fancies, sympathies, and affection, than I used to do as this singular stranger sate with me on the turf-seat at the vine-covered end of the old cottage, which then made my temporary residence, on the serene evenings of that season, over our rustic tea-table, and with the spicy breath of the wall-flowers of that little garden breathing around us, and held conversation on many a subject of moral and intellectual speculation which then deeply interested me. In some of those evening hours he at length gave me glimpses into his past existence. Things more strange and melancholy than I could ever have suspected had passed over him, and only the more interested me in him.

Such had been our acquaintance for some months, when, one evening, happening to be in the neighboring town, and passing through a densely-populated part of it, I saw a number of people crowding into a chapel. With my usual curiosity in all that relates to the life, habits, and opinions of my fellow-men, I entered, and was no little surprised to behold my ancient friend in the pulpit. As I believed he had not observed me enter, and as I was desirous to hear my worthy friend, thus most unexpectedly found in this situation, without attracting his attention, I therefore seated myself in the shade of a pillar, and awaited the sermon. My surprise, as I listened to it, was excessive, on more accounts than one. I was surprised at the intense, fervid, and picturesque blaze of eloquence that breathed forth from the preacher, seeming to light up the whole place, and fill it with an unearthly and cloudy fire. I was more astonished by the singularity and wildness of the sentiments uttered. I looked again and again at the rapt and ecstatic preacher. His frame seemed to expand, and to be buoyed up, by his glowing enthusiasm, above the very height of humanity. His hair, white as snow, seemed a pale glory burning round his head, and his countenance, warm with the expression of his entranced spirit, was molten into the visage of a pleading seraph, who saw the terrors of the Divinity revealed before him, and felt only that they for whom he wrestled were around him. They hung upon that awful and unearthly countenance with an intensity which, in beings at the very bar of eternal judgment, hanging on the advocacy of an angel, could scarcely have been exceeded; and when he ceased, and sat down, a sigh, as from every heart at once, went through the place, which marked the fall of their rapt imaginations from the high region whither his words and expressive features had raised them, to the dimness and reality of earth. I could scarcely persuade myself that this was my late friend of the woods and fields, and of the evening discourse, so calm and dispassionate, over our little tea-table.

I escaped cautiously with the crowd, and eagerly interrogated a man who passed out near me who was the preacher? He looked at me with an air of surprise; but seeing me a stranger, he said he thought I could not have been in those parts long, or I should have known Mr. M——. I then learned that my venerable acquaintance was one whose name was known far and wide—known for the strange and fascinating powers of his pulpit eloquence, and for the peculiarity of his religious views. The singularity of those notions alone had prevented his becoming one of the most popular religious orators of his time. They had been the source of perpetual troubles and persecutions to him, they had estranged from him the most zealous of his friends from time to time; yet they were such only as he could lay down at the threshold of Divine judgment; and still, wherever he went, although they were a root of bitterness to him in private, he found in public a crowd of eager and enthusiastic hearers, who hung on his words as if they came at once warm from the inner courts of heaven.

The sense of this discovery, and of the whole strange scene of the last evening, hung powerfully upon me through the following day. I sat on the bench of my cottage window, with a book in my hand, the greater part of it, but my thoughts continually reverted to the image of the preacher in the midst of his audience; when, at evening, in walked the old man with his usual quiet smile, and shaking me affectionately by the hand, sat down in a wooden chair opposite me. I looked again and again, but in vain, to recognize the floating figure and the exalted countenance of the evening.

The old man took up my book, and began to read. A sudden impulse seized me which I have never ceased to regret. I did not wish abruptly to tell the old man that I had seen him in the pulpit, but I longed to discuss with him the ground of his peculiar views, and said,

"What do you think, my friend, of the actual future destiny of the—?"

I made the question include his peculiar doctrines. He laid down the volume with a remarkable quickness of action. He gazed at me for a moment with a look humbled but not confused, such as I had never seen in him before, and, in a low voice, said,

"You were then at my chapel last night?"

"I was," I replied.

"I am sorry—I am sorry," he said, rising with a sigh. "It has been a pleasant time, but it is ended. Good-by, my dear young friend, and may God bless you!"

He turned silently but quickly away.

"Stop!" I cried. "Stop!" But he heard or heeded not. I ran to the gate to lay hold on him, and assure him that his sentiments would not alter my regard for him, but I observed him already hastening down the lane at such a speed that I judged it rude and useless at that moment to pursue.

I went down that day to his lodgings, to assure him of my sentiments toward him, but door and window were closed, and if he were in he would not hear me. Early next morning a little ragged boy brought me a note, saying a gentleman in the lane had given it to him. It simply said:

"Dear young friend, good-by. You wonder at my abruptness; but my religion has always been fatal to my friendship. You will say it would not with you: so has many another assured me; but I am too well schooled by bitter experience. I have had a call to a distant place. No one knows of it, and I trust the name to no one. The pleasure of your society has detained me, or I had obeyed the call a month ago. May we meet in Heaven! C.M."

He was actually gone, and no one knew whither.

Time had passed over, and I had long imagined this strange and gifted being in his grave, when in a wild and remote part of the kingdom, the other day, I accidentally stumbled upon his retreat, and found him in his pulpit with the same rapt aspect, uttering an harangue as exciting, and surrounded by an audience as eagerly devouring his words.



[From Chesney's Expedition to the Euphrates and Tigris.]

ASSYRIAN SECTS.

There are two remarkable sects, one of which, called the Mendajaha (disciples of John), is found scattered in small communities in Basrah, Kurnah, Mohammarah, and, lastly, Sheikh el Shuyukh, where there are about three hundred families. Those of Basrah are noticed by Pietro de la Valle who says the Arabs call them Sabeans. Their religion is evidently a mixture of Paganism, Hebrew, Mohammedan, and Christian. They profess to regulate their lives by a book called the Sidra, containing many moral precepts, which, according to tradition, have been handed down from Adam, through Seth and Enoch; and it is understood to be in their language (the Chaldee), but written in a peculiar character. They abhor circumcision, but are very particular in distinguishing between clean and unclean animals, and likewise in keeping the Sabbath with extraordinary strictness. The Psalms of David are in use, but they are held to be inferior to their own book. They abstain from garlic, beans, and several kinds of pulse, and likewise most carefully from every description of food between sunrise and sunset during a whole moon before the vernal equinox; in addition to which, an annual festival is kept, called the feast of five days. Much respect is entertained for the city of Mecca, and a still greater reverence for the Pyramids of Egypt, in one of which they believe that their great progenitor, Saba, son of Seth, is buried; and to his original residence at Haran they make very particular pilgrimages, sacrificing on these occasions a ram and a hen. They pray seven times a day, turning sometimes to the south and sometimes to the north. But, at the same time, they retain a part of the ancient worship of the heavenly bodies, adding that of angels, with the belief that the souls of the wicked are to enjoy a happier state after nine hundred centuries of suffering. The priests, who are called sheikhs, or chiefs, use a particular kind of baptism, which, they say, was instituted by St. John; and the Chaldee language is used in this and other ceremonies.

The other religion, that of a more numerous branch, the Yezidis, is, in some respects, like the Mendajaha, but with the addition of the evil principle, the exalted doctor, who, as an instrument of the divine will, is propitiated rather than worshiped, as had been once supposed. The Yezidis reverence Moses, Christ, and Mohammed, in addition to many of the saints and prophets held in veneration both by Christians and Moslems. They adore the sun, as symbolical of Christ, and believe in an intermediate state after death. The Yezidis of Sinjar do not practice circumcision, nor do they eat pork; but they freely partake of the blood of other animals. Their manners are simple, and their habits, both within and without, remarkable for cleanliness. They are, besides, brave, hospitable, sober, faithful, and, with the exception of the Mohammedan, are inclined to tolerate other religions; they are, however, lamentably deficient in every branch of education. Polygamy is not permitted, and the tribes intermarry with each other. The families of the father and sons live under the same roof, and the patriarchal system is carried out still further, each village being under its own hereditary chief.



THE APPROACH OF CHRISTMAS.

The time draws near the birth of Christ, The moon is hid, the night is still; A single church below the hill Is pealing, folded in the mist

A single peal of bells below, That wakens at this hour of rest A single murmur in the breast, That these are not the bells I know

Like strangers' voices here they sound, In lands where not a memory strays, Nor landmark breathes of other days. But all is new unhallow'd ground.

TENNYSON'S "In Memoriam".



[From Dickens's Household Words.]

UGLINESS REDEEMED—A TALE OF A LONDON DUST-HEAP.

On a murky morning in November, wind northeast, a poor old woman with a wooden leg was seen struggling against the fitful gusts of the bitter breeze, along a stony, zig-zag road full of deep and irregular cart-ruts. Her ragged petticoat was blue, and so was her wretched nose. A stick was in her left hand, which assisted her to dig and hobble her way along; and in her other hand, supported also beneath her withered arm, was a large, rusty, iron sieve. Dust and fine ashes filled up all the wrinkles in her face; and of these there were a prodigious number, for she was eighty-three years old. Her name was Peg Dotting.

About a quarter of a mile distant, having a long ditch and a broken-down fence as a foreground, there rose against the muddled-gray sky, a huge dust-heap of a dirty-black color—being, in fact, one of those immense mounds of cinders, ashes, and other emptyings from dust-holes and bins, which have conferred celebrity on certain suburban neighborhoods of a great city. Toward this dusky mountain old Peg Dotting was now making her way.

Advancing toward the dust-heap by an opposite path, very narrow and just reclaimed from the mud by a thick layer of freshly broken flints, there came at the same time Gaffer Doubleyear, with his bone-bag slung over his shoulder. The rags of his coat fluttered in the east-wind, which also whistled keenly round his almost rimless hat, and troubled his one eye. The other eye, having met with an accident last week, he had covered neatly with an oyster-shell, which was kept in its place by a string at each side, fastened through a hole. He used no staff to help him along, though his body was nearly bent double, so that his face was constantly turned to the earth, like that of a four-footed creature. He was ninety-seven years of age.

As these two patriarchal laborers approached the great dust-heap, a discordant voice hallooed to them from the top of a broken wall. It was meant as a greeting of the morning, and proceeded from little Jem Clinker, a poor deformed lad, whose back had been broken when a child. His nose and chin were much too large for the rest of his face, and he had lost nearly all his teeth from premature decay. But he had an eye gleaming with intelligence and life, and an expression at once patient and hopeful. He had balanced his misshapen frame on the top of the old wall, over which one shriveled leg dangled, as if by the weight of a hob-nailed boot, that covered a foot large enough for a plowman.

In addition to his first morning's salutation of his two aged friends, he now shouted out in a tone of triumph and self-gratulation, in which he felt assured of their sympathy—"Two white skins, and a tor'shell-un."

It may be requisite to state that little Jem Clinker belonged to the dead-cat department of the dust-heap, and now announced that a prize of three skins, in superior condition, had rewarded him for being first in the field. He was enjoying a seat on the wall in order to recover himself from the excitement of his good fortune.

At the base of the great dust-heap the two old people now met their young friend—a sort of great-grandson by mutual adoption—and they at once joined the party who had by this time assembled as usual, and were already busy at their several occupations.

But besides all these, another individual, belonging to a very different class, formed a part of the scene, though appearing only on its outskirts. A canal ran along at the rear of the dust-heap, and on the banks of its opposite side slowly wandered by—with hands clasped and hanging down in front of him, and eyes bent vacantly upon his hands—the forlorn figure of a man in a very shabby great-coat, which had evidently once belonged to one in the position of a gentleman. And to a gentleman it still belonged—but in what a position! A scholar, a man of wit, of high sentiment, of refinement, and a good fortune withal—now by a sudden "turn of law" bereft of the last only, and finding that none of the rest, for which (having his fortune) he had been so much admired, enabled him to gain a livelihood. His title deeds had been lost or stolen, and so he was bereft of every thing he possessed. He had talents, and such as would have been profitably available had he known how to use them for this new purpose; but he did not; he was misdirected; he made fruitless efforts, in his want of experience; and he was now starving. As he passed the great dust-heap, he gave one vague, melancholy gaze that way, and then looked wistfully into the canal. And he continued to look into the canal as he slowly moved along, till he was out of sight.

A dust-heap of this kind is often worth thousands of pounds. The present one was very large and very valuable. It was in fact a large hill, and being in the vicinity of small suburb cottages, it rose above them like a great black mountain. Thistles, groundsel, and rank grass grew in knots on small parts which had remained for a long time undisturbed; crows often alighted on its top, and seemed to put on their spectacles and become very busy and serious; flocks of sparrows often made predatory descents upon it; an old goose and gander might sometimes be seen following each other up its side, nearly midway; pigs rooted round its base, and, now and then, one bolder than the rest would venture some way up, attracted by the mixed odors of some hidden marrow-bone enveloped in a decayed cabbage leaf—a rare event, both of these articles being unusual oversights of the searchers below.

The principal ingredient of all these dust-heaps is fine cinders and ashes; but as they are accumulated from the contents of all the dust-holes and bins of the vicinity, and as many more as possible, the fresh arrivals in their original state present very heterogeneous materials. We can not better describe them, than by presenting a brief sketch of the different departments of the searchers and sorters, who are assembled below to busy themselves upon the mass of original matters which are shot out from the carts of the dustmen.

The bits of coal, the pretty numerous results of accident and servants' carelessness, are picked out, to be sold forthwith; the largest and best of the cinders are also selected, by another party, who sell them to laundresses, or to braziers (for whose purposes coke would not do so well); and the next sort of cinders, called the breeze, because it is left after the wind has blown the finer cinders through an upright sieve, is sold to the brick-makers.

Two other departments, called the "soft-ware" and the "hard-ware," are very important. The former includes all vegetable and animal matters—every thing that will decompose. These are selected and bagged at once, and carried off as soon as possible, to be sold as manure for ploughed land, wheat, barley, &c. Under this head, also, the dead cats are comprised. They are, generally, the perquisites of the women searchers. Dealers come to the wharf, or dust-field, every evening; they give sixpence for a white cat, fourpence for a colored cat, and for a black one according to her quality. The "hard-ware" includes all broken pottery, pans, crockery, earthenware, oyster-shells, &c, which are sold to make new roads.

"The bones" are selected with care, and sold to the soap-boiler. He boils out the fat and marrow first, for special use, and the bones are then crushed and sold for manure.

Of "rags," the woolen rags are bagged and sent off for hop-manure; the white linen rags are washed, and sold to make paper, &c.

The "tin things" are collected and put into an oven with a grating at the bottom, so that the solder which unites the parts melts, and runs through into a receiver. This is sold separately; the detached pieces of tin are then sold to be melted up with old iron, &c.

Bits of old brass, lead, &c., are sold to be melted up separately, or in the mixture of ores.

All broken glass vessels, as cruets, mustard-pots, tumblers, wine-glasses, bottles, &c., are sold to the old-glass shops.

As for any articles of jewelry, silver-spoons, forks, thimbles, or other plate and valuables, they are pocketed off-hand by the first finder. Coins of gold and silver are often found, and many "coppers."

Meantime, every body is hard at work near the base of the great dust-heap. A certain number of cart-loads having been raked and searched for all the different things just described, the whole of it now undergoes the process of sifting. The men throw up the stuff, and the women sift it.

"When I was a young girl," said Peg Dotting—

"That's a long while ago, Peggy," interrupted one of the sifters: but Peg did not hear her.

"When I was quite a young thing," continued she, addressing old John Doubleyear, who threw up the dust into her sieve, "it was the fashion to wear pink roses in the shoes, as bright as that morsel of ribbon Sally has just picked out of the dust; yes, and sometimes in the hair, too, on one side of the head, to set off the white powder and salve-stuff. I never wore one of these head-dresses myself—don't throw up the dust so high, John—but I lived only a few doors lower down from those as did. Don't throw up the dust so high, I tell 'ee—the wind takes it into my face."

"Ah! There! What's that?" suddenly exclaimed little Jem, running as fast as his poor withered legs would allow him, toward a fresh heap, which had just been shot down on the wharf from a dustman's cart. He made a dive and a search—then another—then one deeper still. "I'm sure I saw it!" cried he, and again made a dash with both hands into a fresh place, and began to distribute the ashes, and dust, and rubbish on every side, to the great merriment of all the rest.

"What did you see, Jemmy?" asked old Doubleyear, in a compassionate tone.

"Oh, I don't know," said the boy, "only it was like a bit of something made of real gold!"

A fresh burst of laughter from the company assembled followed this somewhat vague declaration, to which the dustmen added one or two elegant epithets, expressive of their contempt of the notion that they could have overlooked a bit of any thing valuable in the process of emptying sundry dust-holes, and carting them away.

"Ah," said one of the sifters, "poor Jem's always a-fancying something or other good—but it never comes."

"Didn't I find three cats this morning!" cried Jem; "two on 'em white 'uns! How you go on!"

"I meant something quite different from the like o' that," said the other; "I was a-thinking of the rare sights all you three there have had, one time and another."

The wind having changed and the day become bright, the party at work all seemed disposed to be more merry than usual. The foregoing remark excited the curiosity of several of the sifters, who had recently joined the "company," the parties alluded to were requested to favor them with the recital; and though the request was made with only a half-concealed irony, still it was all in good-natured pleasantry, and was immediately complied with. Old Doubleyear spoke first.

"I had a bad night of it with the rats some years ago—they run'd all over the floor, and over the bed, and one on 'em come'd and guv a squeak close into my ear—so I couldn't sleep comfortable. I wouldn't ha' minded a trifle of at; but this was too much of a good thing. So, I got up before sun-rise, and went out for a walk; and thinking I might as well be near our work-place, I slowly come'd down this way. I worked in a brick-field at that time, near the canal yonder. The sun was just a-rising up behind the dust-heap as I got in sight of it; and soon it rose above, and was very bright; and though I had two eyes then, I was obligated to shut them both. When I opened them again, the sun was higher up; but in his haste to get over the dust-heap, he had dropped something. You may laugh. I say he had dropped something. Well—I can't say what it was, in course—a bit of his-self, I suppose. It was just like him—a bit on him, I mean—quite as bright—just the same—only not so big. And not up in the sky, but a-lying and sparkling all on fire upon the dust-heap. Thinks I—I was a younger man then by some years than I am now—I'll go and have a nearer look. Though you be a bit o' the sun, maybe you won't hurt a poor man. So, I walked toward the dust-heap, and up I went, keeping the piece of sparkling fire in sight all the while. But before I got up to it, the sun went behind a cloud—and as he went out-like, so the young 'un he had dropped, went out after him. And I had my climb up the heap for nothing, though I had marked the place were it lay very percizely. But there was no signs at all on him, and no morsel left of the light as had been there. I searched all about; but found nothing 'cept a bit o' broken glass as had got stuck in the heel of an old shoe. And that's my story. But if ever a man saw any thing at all, I saw a bit o' the sun; and I thank God for it. It was a blessed sight for a poor ragged old man of three score and ten, which was my age at that time."

"Now, Peggy!" cried several voices, "tell us what you saw. Peg saw a bit o' the moon."

"No," said Mrs. Dotting, rather indignantly; "I'm no moon-raker. Not a sign of the moon was there, nor a spark of a star—the time I speak on."

"Well—go on, Peggy—go on."

"I don't know as I will," said Peggy.

But being pacified by a few good-tempered, though somewhat humorous compliments, she thus favored them with her little adventure:

"There was no moon, nor stars, nor comet, in the 'versal heavens, nor lamp nor lantern along the road, when I walked home one winter's night from the cottage of Widow Pin, where I had been to tea, with her and Mrs. Dry, as lived in the almshouses. They wanted Davy, the son of Bill Davy the milkman, to see me home with the lantern, but I wouldn't let him 'cause of his sore throat. Throat!—no, it wasn't his throat as was rare sore—it was—no, it wasn't—yes, it was—it was his toe as was sore. His big toe. A nail out of his boot had got into it. I told him he'd be sure to have a bad toe, if he didn't go to church more regular, but he wouldn't listen; and so my words come'd true. But, as I was a-saying, I wouldn't let him light me with the lantern by reason of his sore throat—toe, I mean—and as I went along, the night seemed to grow darker and darker. A straight road, though, and I was so used to it by day-time, it didn't matter for the darkness. Hows'ever, when I come'd near the bottom of the dust-heap as I had to pass, the great dark heap was so zackly the same as the night, you couldn't tell one from t'other. So, thinks I to myself—what was I thinking of at this moment?—for the life o' me I can't call it to mind; but that's neither here nor there, only for this—it was a something that led me to remember the story of how the devil goes about like a roaring lion. And while I was a-hoping he might not be out a-roaring that night, what should I see rise out of one side of the dust-heap, but a beautiful shining star of a violet color. I stood as still—as stock-still as any I don't-know-what! There it lay, as beautiful as a new-born babe, all a-shining in the dust! By degrees I got courage to go a little nearer—and then a little nearer still—for, says I to myself, I'm a sinful woman, I know, but I have repented, and do repent constantly of all the sins of my youth, and the backslidings of my age—which have been numerous; and once I had a very heavy backsliding—but that's neither here nor there. So, as I was a-saying, having collected all my sinfulness of life, and humbleness before heaven, into a goodish bit of courage, forward I steps—little furder—and a leetle furder more—un-til I come'd just up to the beautiful shining star lying upon the dust. Well, it was a long time I stood a-looking down at it, before I ventured to do, what I arterwards did. But at last I did stoop down with both hands slowly—in case it might burn, or bite—and gathering up a good scoop of ashes as my hands went along, I took it up, and began a-carrying it home, all shining before me, and with a soft, blue mist rising up round about it. Heaven forgive me!—I was punished for meddling with what Providence had sent for some better purpose than to be carried home by an old woman like me, whom it has pleased heaven to afflict with the loss of one leg, and the pain, ixpinse, and inconvenience of a wooden one. Well—I was punished; covetousness had its reward; for, presently, the violet light got very pale, and then went out; and when I reached home, still holding in both hands all I had gathered up, and when I took it to the candle, it had turned into the red shell of a lobsky's head, and its two black eyes poked up at me with a long stare—and I may say, a strong smell too—enough to knock a poor body down."

Great applause, and no little laughter, followed the conclusion of old Peggy's story, but she did not join in the merriment. She said it was all very well for young people to laugh, but at her age she had enough to do to pray; and she had never said so many prayers, nor with so much fervency, as she had done since she received the blessed sight of the blue star on the dust-heap, and the chastising rod of the lobster's head at home.

Little Jem's turn now came; the poor lad was, however, so excited by the recollection of what his companions called "Jem's Ghost," that he was unable to describe it in any coherent language. To his imagination it had been a lovely vision—the one "bright consummate flower" of his life, which he treasured up as the most sacred image in his heart. He endeavored, in wild and hasty words, to set forth, how that he had been bred a chimney-sweep; that one Sunday afternoon he had left a set of companions, most on 'em sweeps, who were all playing at marbles in the church-yard, and he had wandered to the dust-heap, where he had fallen asleep; that he was awoke by a sweet voice in the air, which said something about some one having lost her way!—that he, being now wide awake, looked up, and saw with his own eyes a young angel, with fair hair and rosy cheeks, and large white wings at her shoulders, floating about like bright clouds, rise out of the dust! She had on a garment of shining crimson, which changed as he looked upon her to shining gold, then to purple and gold. She then exclaimed, with a joyful smile, "I see the right way!" and the next moment the angel was gone.

As the sun was just now very bright and warm for the time of the year, and shining full upon the dust-heap in its setting, one of the men endeavored to raise a laugh at the deformed lad, by asking him if he didn't expect to see just such another angel at this minute, who had lost her way in the field on the other side of the heap; but his jest failed. The earnestness and devout emotion of the boy to the vision of reality which his imagination, aided by the hues of sunset, had thus exalted, were too much for the gross spirit of banter, and the speaker shrank back into his dust-hovel, and affected to be very assiduous in his work as the day was drawing to a close.

Before the day's work was ended, however, little Jem again had a glimpse of the prize which had escaped him on the previous occasion. He instantly darted, hands and head foremost, into the mass of cinders and rubbish, and brought up a black mass of half-burnt parchment, entwined with vegetable refuse, from which he speedily disengaged an oval frame of gold, containing a miniature, still protected by its glass, but half covered with mildew from the damp. He was in ecstasies at the prize. Even the white cat-skins paled before it. In all probability some of the men would have taken it from, him "to try and find the owner," but for the presence and interference of his friends Peg Dotting and old Doubleyear, whose great age, even among the present company, gave them a certain position of respect and consideration. So all the rest now went their way, leaving the three to examine and speculate on the prize.

The dust-heaps are a wonderful compound of things. A banker's check for a considerable sum was found in one of them. It was on Herries and Farquhar, in 1847. But bankers' checks, or gold and silver articles, are the least valuable of their ingredients. Among other things, a variety of useful chemicals are extracted. Their chief value, however, is for the making of bricks. The fine cinder-dust and ashes are used in the clay of the bricks, both for the red and gray stacks. Ashes are also used as fuel between the layers of the clump of bricks, which could not be burned in that position without them. The ashes burn away, and keep the bricks open. Enormous quantities are used. In the brick-fields at Uxbridge, near the Drayton Station, one of the brickmakers alone will frequently contract for fifteen or sixteen thousand chaldron of this cinder-dust, in one order. Fine coke or coke-dust, affects the market at times as a rival; but fine coal, or coal-dust, never, because it would spoil the bricks.

As one of the heroes of our tale had been originally—before his promotion—a chimney-sweeper, it may be only appropriate to offer a passing word on the genial subject of soot. Without speculating on its origin and parentage, whether derived from the cooking of a Christmas dinner, or the production of the beautiful colors and odors of exotic plants in a conservatory, it can briefly be shown to possess many qualities both useful and ornamental. When soot is first collected, it is called "rough soot," which, being sifted, is then called "fine soot," and is sold to farmers for manuring and preserving wheat and turnips. This is more especially used in Herefordshire, Bedfordshire, Essex, &c. It is rather a costly article, being fivepence per bushel. One contractor sells annually as much as three thousand bushels; and he gives it as his opinion, that there must be at least one hundred and fifty times this quantity (four hundred and fifty thousand bushels per annum) sold in London. Farmer Smutwise of Bradford, distinctly asserts that the price of the soot he uses on his land is returned to him in the straw, with improvement also to the grain. And we believe him. Lime is used to dilute soot when employed as a manure. Using it pure will keep off snails, slugs, and caterpillars, from peas and various other vegetables, as also from dahlias just shooting up, and other flowers; but we regret to add that we have sometimes known it kill, or burn up the things it was intended to preserve from unlawful eating. In short, it is by no means so safe to use for any purpose of garden manure, as fine cinders, and wood-ashes, which are good for almost any kind of produce, whether turnips or roses. Indeed, we should like to have one fourth or fifth part of our garden-beds composed of excellent stuff of this kind. From all that has been said, it will have become very intelligible why these dust-heaps are so valuable. Their worth, however, varies not only with their magnitude (the quality of all of them is much the same), but with the demand. About the year 1820, the Marylebone dust-heap produced between four thousand and five thousand pounds. In 1832, St. George's paid Mr. Stapleton five hundred pounds a year, not to leave the heap standing, but to carry it away. Of course he was only too glad to be paid highly for selling his dust.

But to return. The three friends having settled to their satisfaction the amount of money they should probably obtain by the sale of the golden miniature-frame, and finished the castles which they had built with it in the air, the frame was again enfolded in the sound part of the parchment, the rags and rottenness of the law were cast away, and up they rose to bend their steps homeward to the little hovel where Peggy lived, she having invited the others to tea that they might talk yet more fully over the wonderful good luck that had befallen them.

"Why, if there isn't a man's head in the canal!" suddenly cried little Jem. "Looky there!—isn't that a man's head?—Yes; it's a drowndedd man?"

"A drowndedd man, as I live!" ejaculated old Doubleyear.

"Let's get him out, and see!" cried Peggy. "Perhaps the poor soul's not quite gone."

Little Jem scuttled off to the edge of the canal, followed by the two old people. As soon as the body had floated nearer, Jem got down into the water, and stood breast-high, vainly measuring his distance with one arm out, to see if he could reach some part of the body as it was passing. As the attempt was evidently without a chance, old Doubleyear managed to get down into the water behind him, and holding him by one hand, the boy was thus enabled to make a plunge forward as the body was floating by. He succeeded in reaching it; but the jerk was too much for the weakness of his aged companion, who was pulled forward into the canal. A loud cry burst from both of them, which was yet more loudly echoed by Peggy on the bank. Doubleyear and the boy were now struggling almost in the middle of the canal with the body of the man swirling about between them. They would inevitably have been drowned, had not old Peggy caught up a long dust-rake that was close at hand—scrambled down up to her knees in the canal—clawed hold of the struggling group with the teeth of the rake, and fairly brought the whole to land. Jem was first up the bank, and helped up his two heroic companions; after which with no small difficulty, they contrived to haul the body of the stranger out of the water. Jem at once recognized in him the forlorn figure of the man who had passed by in the morning, looking so sadly into the canal, as he walked along.

It is a fact well known to those who work in the vicinity of these great dust-heaps, that when the ashes have been warmed by the sun, cats and kittens that have been taken out of the canal and buried a few inches beneath the surface, have usually revived; and the same has often occurred in the case of men. Accordingly the three, without a moment's hesitation, dragged the body along to the dust-heap, where they made a deep trench, in which they placed it, covering it all over up to the neck.

"There now," ejaculated Peggy, sitting down with a long puff to recover her breath, "he'll lie very comfortable, whether or no."

"Couldn't lie better," said old Doubleyear, "even if he knew it."

The three now seated themselves close by, to await the result.

"I thought I'd a lost him," said Jem, "and myself too; and when I pulled Daddy in arter me, I guv us all three up for this world."

"Yes," said Doubleyear, "it must have gone queer with us if Peggy had not come in with the rake. How d'yee feel, old girl; for you've had a narrow escape too. I wonder we were not too heavy for you, and so pulled you in to go with us."

"The Lord be praised!" fervently ejaculated Peggy, pointing toward the pallid face that lay surrounded with ashes. A convulsive twitching passed over the features, the lips trembled, the ashes over the breast heaved, and a low moaning sound, which might have come from the bottom of the canal, was heard. Again the moaning sound, and then the eyes opened, but closed almost immediately. "Poor dear soul!" whispered Peggy, "how he suffers in surviving. Lift him up a little. Softly. Don't be afeared. We're only your good angels, like—only poor cinder-sifters—don'tee be afeared."

By various kindly attentions and man[oe]uvres such as these poor people had been accustomed to practice on those who were taken out of the canal, the unfortunate gentleman was gradually brought to his senses. He gazed about him, as well he might—now looking in the anxious, though begrimed, faces of the three strange objects, all in their "weeds" and dust—and then up at the huge dust-heap, over which the moon was now slowly rising.

"Land of quiet Death!" murmured he, faintly, "or land of Life, as dark and still—I have passed from one into the other; but which of ye I am now in, seems doubtful to my senses."

"Here we are, poor gentleman," cried Peggy, "here we are, all friends about you. How did 'ee tumble into the canal?"

"The Earth, then, once more!" said the stranger, with a deep sigh. "I know where I am, now. I remember this great dark hill of ashes—like Death's kingdom, full of all sorts of strange things, and put to many uses."

"Where do you live?" asked old Doubleyear; "shall we try and take you home, sir?"

The stranger shook his head mournfully. All this time, little Jem had been assiduously employed in rubbing his feet and then his hands; in doing which the piece of dirty parchment, with the miniature-frame, dropped out of his breast-pocket. A good thought instantly struck Peggy.

"Run, Jemmy dear—run with that golden thing to Mr. Spikechin, the pawnbroker's—get something upon it directly, and buy some nice brandy—and some Godfrey's cordial—and a blanket, Jemmy—and call a coach, and get up outside on it, and make the coachee drive back here as fast as you can."

But before Jemmy could attend to this, Mr. Waterhouse, the stranger whose life they had preserved, raised himself on one elbow, and extended his hand to the miniature-frame. Directly he looked at it, he raised himself higher up—turned it about once or twice—then caught up the piece of parchment; and uttering an ejaculation, which no one could have distinguished either as of joy or of pain, sank back fainting.

In brief, this parchment was a portion of the title-deeds he had lost; and though it did not prove sufficient to enable him to recover his fortune, it brought his opponent to a composition, which gave him an annuity for life. Small as this was, he determined that these poor people, who had so generously saved his life at the risk of their own, should be sharers in it. Finding that what they most desired was to have a cottage in the neighborhood of the dust-heap, built large enough for all three to live together, and keep a cow, Mr. Waterhouse paid a visit to Manchester-square, where the owner of the property resided. He told his story, as far as was needful, and proposed to purchase the field in question.

The great dust-contractor was much amused, and his daughter—a very accomplished young lady—was extremely interested. So the matter was speedily arranged to the satisfaction and pleasure of all parties. The acquaintance, however, did not end here. Mr. Waterhouse renewed his visits very frequently, and finally made proposals for the young lady's hand, she having already expressed her hopes of a propitious answer from her father.

"Well, sir," said the latter, "you wish to marry my daughter, and she wishes to marry you. You are a gentleman and a scholar, but you have no money. My daughter is what you see, and she has no money. But I have; and therefore, as she likes you, and I like you, I'll make you both an offer. I will give my daughter twenty thousand pounds—or you shall have the dust-heap. Choose!"

Mr. Waterhouse was puzzled and amused, and referred the matter entirely to the young lady. But she was for having the money, and no trouble. She said the dust-heap might be worth much, but they did not understand the business. "Very well," said her father, laughing, "then there's the money."

This was the identical dust-heap, as we know from authentic information, which was subsequently sold for forty thousand pounds, and was exported to Russia to rebuild Moscow.



SKETCHES OF ENGLISH CHARACTER.

BY WILLIAM HOWITT.

THE OLD SQUIRE.

The old squire, or, in other words, the squire of the old school, is the eldest born of John Bull; he is the "very moral of him;" as like him as pea to pea. He has a tolerable share of his good qualities; and as for his prejudices—oh, they are his meat and drink, and the very clothes he wears. He is made up of prejudices—he is covered all over with them. They are the staple of his dreams; they garnish his dishes, they spice his cup, they enter into his very prayers, and they make his will altogether. His oaks and elms in his park, and in his woods—they are sturdy timbers, in troth, and gnarled and knotted to some purpose, for they have stood for centuries; but what are they to the towering upshoots of his prejudices? Oh, they are mere wands! If he has not stood for centuries, his prejudices have; for they have come down from generation to generation with the family and the estate. They have ridden, to use another figure, like the Old Man of the Sea, on the shoulders of his ancestors, and have skipped from those of one ancestor to those of the next; and there they sit on his own most venerable, well-fed, comfortable, ancient, and gray-eyed prejudices, as familiar to their seat as the collar of his coat. He would take cold without them; to part with them would be the death of him. So! don't go too near—don't let us alarm them; for, in truth, they have had insults, and met with impertinences of late years, and have grown fretful and cantankerous in their old age. Nay, horrid radicals have not hesitated, in this wicked generation, to aim sundry deadly blows at them; and it has been all that the old squire has been able to do to protect them. Then—

You need not rub them backwards like a cat, If you would see them spirt and sparkle up.

You have only to give one look at them, and they will appear to all in bristles and fury, like a nest of porcupines.

The old squire, like his father, is a sincere lover and a most hearty hater. What does he love? Oh, he loves the country—'tis the only country on the earth that is worth calling a country; and he loves the constitution. But don't ask him what it is, unless you want to test the hardness of his walking-stick; it is the constitution, the finest thing in the world, and all the better for being, like the Athanasian creed, a mystery. Of what use is it that the mob should understand it? It is our glorious constitution—that is enough. Are you not contented to feel how good it is, without going to peer into its very entrails, and perhaps ruin it, like an ignorant fellow putting his hand into the works of a clock? Are you not contented to let the sun shine on you? Do you want to go up and see what it is made of? Well, then, it is the constitution—the finest thing in the world; and, good as the country is, it would be good for nothing without it, no more than a hare would without stuffing, or a lantern without a candle, or the church without the steeple or the ring of bells. Well, he loves the constitution, as he ought to do; for has it not done well for him and his forefathers? And has it not kept the mob in their places, spite of the French Revolution? And taken care of the National Debt? And has it not taught us all to "fear God and honor the king;" and given the family estate to him, the church to his brother Ned, and put Fred and George into the army and navy? Could there possibly be a better constitution, if the Whigs could but let it alone with their Reform Bills? And, therefore, as he most reasonably loves the dear, old, mysterious, and benevolent constitution to distraction, and places it in the region of his veneration somewhere in the seventh heaven itself, so he hates every body and thing that hates it.

He hates Frenchmen because he loves his country, and thinks we are dreadfully degenerated that we do not nowadays find some cause, as the wisdom of our ancestors did, to pick a quarrel with them, and give them a good drubbing. Is not all our glory made up of beating the French and the Dutch? And what is to become of history, and the army and the fleet, if we go on this way? He does not stop to consider that the army, at least, thrives as well with peace as war; that it continues to increase; that it eats, drinks, and sleeps as well, and dresses better, and lives a great deal more easily and comfortably in peace than in war. But, then, what is to become of history, and the drubbing of the French? Who may, however, possibly die of "envy and admiration of our glorious constitution."

The old squire loves the laws of England; that is, all the laws that ever were passed by kings, lords, and commons, especially if they have been passed some twenty years, and he has had to administer them. The poor-law and the game-law, the impressment act, the law of primogeniture, the law of capital punishments; all kind of private acts for the inclosure of commons; turnpike acts, stamp acts, and acts of all sorts; he loves and venerates them all, for they are part and parcel of the statute law of England. As a matter of course, he hates most religiously all offenders against such acts. The poor are a very good sort of people; nay, he has a thorough and hereditary liking for the poor, and they have sundry doles and messes of soup from the Hall, as they had in his father's time, so long as they go to church, and don't happen to be asleep there when he is awake himself; and don't come upon the parish, or send bastards there; so long as they take off their hats with all due reverence, and open gates when they see him coming. But if they presume to go to the Methodists' meeting, or to a Radical club, or complain of the price of bread, which is a grievous sin against the agricultural interest; or to poach, which is all crimes in one—if they fall into any of these sins, oh, then, they are poor devils indeed! Then does the worthy old squire hate all the brood of them most righteously; for what are they but Atheists, Jacobins, Revolutionists, Chartists, rogues and vagabonds? With what a frown he scowls on them as he meets them in one of the narrow old lanes, returning from some camp meeting or other; how he expects every dark night to hear of ricks being burnt, or pheasants shot. How does he tremble for the safety of the country while they are at large; and with what satisfaction does he grant a warrant to bring them before him; and, as a matter of course, how joyfully, spite of all pleas and protestations of innocence, does he commit them to the treadmill, or the county jail, for trial at the quarter sessions.

He has a particular affection for the quarter sessions, for there he, and his brethren all put together, make, he thinks, a tolerable representation of majesty; and thence he has the satisfaction of seeing all the poachers transported beyond the seas. The county jail and the house of correction are particular pets of his. He admires even their architecture, and prides himself especially on the size and massiveness of the prison. He used to extend his fondness even to the stocks; but the treadmill, almost the only modern thing which has wrought such a miracle, has superseded it in his affections, and the ancient stocks now stand deserted, and half lost in a bed of nettles; but he still looks with a gracious eye on the parish pound, and returns the pinder's touch of his hat with a marked attention, looking upon him as one of the most venerable appendages of antique institutions.

Of course the old squire loves the church. Why, it is ancient, and that is enough of itself; but, beside that, all the wisdom of his ancestors belonged to it. His great-great-uncle was a bishop; his wife's grandfather was a dean; he has the presentation of the living, which is now in the hands of his brother Ned; and he has himself all the great tithes which, in the days of popery, belonged to it. He loves it all the better, because he thinks that the upstart dissenters want to pull it down; and he hates all upstarts. And what! Is it not the church of the queen, and the ministers, and all the nobility, and of all the old families? It is the only religion for a gentleman, and, therefore, it is his religion. Would the dissenting minister hob-nob with him as comfortably over the after-dinner bottle as Ned does, and play a rubber as comfortably with him, and let him swear a comfortable oath now and then? 'Tis not to be supposed. Besides, of what family is this dissenting minister? Where does he spring from? At what university did he graduate? 'Twon't do for the old squire. No! the clerk, the sexton, and the very churchwardens of the time being, partake, in his eye, of the time-tried sanctity of the good old church, and are bound up in the bundle of his affections.

These are a few of the old squire's likings and antipathies, which are just as much part of himself, as the entail is of his inheritance. But we shall see yet more of them when we come to see more of him and his abode. The old squire is turned of threescore, and every thing is old about him. He lives in an old house in the midst of an old park, which has a very old wall, end gates so old, that though they are made of oak as hard as iron, they begin to stoop in the shoulders, like the old gentleman himself and the carpenter, who is an old man too, and has been watching them forty years in hopes of their tumbling, and gives them a good lusty bang after him every time he passes through, swears they must have been made in the days of King Canute. The squire has an old coach drawn by two and occasionally by four old fat horses, and driven by a jolly old coachman, in which his old lady and his old maiden sister ride; for he seldom gets into it himself, thinking it a thing fit only for women and children, preferring infinitely the back of Jack, his old roadster.

If you went to dine with him, you would find him just as you would have found his father; not a thing has been changed since his days. There is the great entrance hall, with its cold stone floor, and its fine tall-backed chairs, and an old walnut cabinet; and on the walls a quantity of stags' horns, with caps and riding-whips hung on them; and the pictures of his ancestors, in their antiquated dresses, and slender, tarnished, antiquated frames. In his drawing-room you will find none of your new grand pianos and fashionable couches and ottomans; but an old spinet and a fiddle, another set of those long-legged, tall-backed chairs, two or three little settees, a good massy table, and a fine large carved mantle-piece, with bright steel dogs instead of a modern stove, and logs of oak burning, if it be cold. At table, all his plate is of the most ancient make, and he drinks toasts and healths in tankards of ale that is strong enough to make a horse reel, but which he continually avows is as mild as mother's milk, and wouldn't hurt an infant. He has an old rosy butler, and loves very old venison, which fills the whole house with its perfume while roasting; and an old double-Gloucester cheese, full of jumpers and mites; and after it a bottle of old port, at which he is often joined by the parson, and always by a queer, quiet sort of a tall, thin man, in a seedy black coat, and with a crimson face, bearing testimony to the efficacy of the squire's port and "mother's milk."

This man is always to be seen about, and has been these twenty years. He goes with the squire a-coursing and shooting, and into the woods with him. He carries his shot-belt and powder-flask, and gives him out his chargings and his copper caps. He is as often seen about the steward's house; and he comes in and out of the squire's just as he pleases, always seating himself in a particular chair near the fire, and pinches the ears of the dogs, and gives the cat, now and then, a pinch of snuff as she lies sleeping in a chair; and when the squire's old lady says, "How can you do so, Mr. Wagstaff?" he only gives a quiet, chuckling laugh, and says, "Oh, they like it, madam; they like it, you may depend." That is the longest speech he ever makes, for he seldom does more than say "yes" and "no" to what is said to him, and still oftener gives only a quiet smile and a soft of little nasal "hum." The squire has a vast affection for him, and always walks up to the little chamber which is allotted to him, once a week, to see that the maid does not neglect it; though at table he cuts many a sharp joke upon Wagstaff, to which Wagstaff only returns a smile and a shake of the head, which is more full of meaning to the squire than a long speech. Such is the old squire's constant companion.

But we have not yet done with the squire's antiquities. He has an old woodman, an old shepherd, an old justice's clerk, and almost all his farmers are old. He seems to have an antipathy to almost every thing that is not old. Young men are his aversion; they are such coxcombs, he says, nowadays. The only exception is a young woman. He always was a great admirer of the fair sex; though we are not going to rake up the floating stories of the neighborhood about the gallantries of his youth; but his lady, who is justly considered to have been as fine a woman as ever stepped in shoe-leather, is a striking proof of his judgment in women. Never, however, does his face relax into such pleasantness of smiles and humorous twinkles of the eye, as when he is in company with young ladies. He is full of sly compliments and knowing hints about their lovers, and is universally reckoned among them "a dear old gentleman."

When he meets a blooming country damsel crossing the park, or as he rides along a lane, he is sure to stop and have a word with her. "Aha, Mary! I know you, there! I can tell you by your mother's eyes and lips that you've stole away from her. Ay, you're a pretty slut enough, but I remember your mother. Gad! I don't know whether you are entitled to carry her slippers after her! But never mind, you're handsome enough; and I reckon you're going to be married directly. Well, well, I won't make you blush; so, good-by, Mary, good-by! Father and mother are both hearty—eh?"

The routine of the old squire's life may be summed up in a sentence: hearing cases and granting warrants and licenses, and making out commitments as justice; going through the woods to look after the growth, and trimming, and felling of his trees; going out with his keeper to reconnoitre the state of his covers and preserves; attending quarter sessions; dining occasionally with the judge on circuit; attending the county ball and the races; hunting and shooting, dining and singing a catch or glee with Wagstaff and the parson over his port. He has a large, dingy room, surrounded with dingy folios, and other books in vellum bindings, which he calls his library. Here he sits as justice; and here he receives his farmers on rent-days, and a wonderful effect it has on their imaginations; for who can think otherwise than that the squire must be a prodigious scholar, seeing all that array of big books? And, in fact, the old squire is a great reader in his own line. He reads the Times daily; and he reads Gwillim's "Heraldry," the "History of the Landed Gentry," Rapin's "History of England," and all the works of Fielding, Richardson, and Sterne, whom he declares to be the greatest writers England ever produced, or ever will produce.

But the old squire is not without his troubles. In his serious judgment all the world is degenerating. The nation is running headlong to ruin. "Lord, how different it was in my time!" is his constant exclamation. The world is now completely turned topsy-turvy. Here is the Reform Bill, the New Poor-law, which though it does make sharp work among the rogues and vagabonds, yet has sorely shorn the authority of magistrates. Here are the New Game-laws, Repeal of the Corn-laws, and the Navigation-laws; new books, all trash and nonsense; and these harum-scarum railroads, cutting up the country and making it dangerous to be riding out any where. "Just," says he, "as a sober gentleman is riding quietly by the side of his wood, bang! goes that 'hell-in-harness,' a steam-engine, past. Up goes the horse, down goes the rider to a souse in the ditch, and a broken collar bone."

Then all the world is now running all over the continent, learning all sorts of Frenchified airs and fashions and notions, and beggaring themselves into the bargain. He never set foot on the d—d, beggarly, frog-eating Continent—not he! It was thought enough to live at home, and eat good roast beef, and sing "God save the King," in his time; but now a man is looked upon as a mere clown who has not run so far round the world that he can seldom ever find his way back again to his estate, but stops short in London, where all the extravagance and nonsense in creation are concentrated, to help our mad gentry out of their wits and their money together. The old squire groans here in earnest; for his daughter, who has married Sir Benjamin Spankitt, and his son Tom, who has married the Lady Babara Ridemdown, are as mad as the rest of them.

Of Tom, the young squire, we shall take a more complete view anon. But there is another of the old squire's troubles yet to be noticed, and that is in the shape of an upstart. One of the worst features of the times is the growth and spread of upstarts. Old families going down, as well as old customs, and new people, who are nobody, taking their places. Old estates bought up—not by the old gentry, who are scattering their money in London, and among all the grinning monsieurs, mynheers, and signores, on the frogified continent, but by the soap-boilers and sugar-bakers of London. The country gentry, he avers, have been fools enough to spend their money in London, and now the people they have spent it among are coming and buying up all the estates about them. Ask him, as you ride out with him by the side of some great wood or venerable park, "What old family lives there?" "Old family!" he exclaims, with an air of angry astonishment; "old family! Where do you see old families nowadays? That is Sir Peter Post, the great horse-racer, who was a stable-boy not twenty years ago; and that great brick house on the hill there is the seat of one of the great Bearrings, who have made money enough among the bulls and bears to buy up the estates of half the fools hereabout. But that is nothing; I can assure you, men are living in halls and abbeys in these parts, who began their lives in butchers' shops and cobblers' stalls."

It might, however, be tolerated that merchants and lawyers, stock-jobbers, and even sugar-bakers and soap-boilers, should buy up the old houses; but the most grievous nuisance, and perpetual thorn in the old squire's side, is Abel Grundy, the son of an old wheelwright, who, by dint of his father's saving and his own sharpness, has grown into a man of substance under the squire's own nose. Abel began by buying odds and ends of lands and scattered cottages, which did not attract the squire's notice; till at length, a farm being to be sold, which the squire meant to have, and did not fear any opponent, Abel Grundy bid for it, and bought it, striking the old steward actually dumb with astonishment; and then it was found that all the scattered lots which Grundy had been buying up, lay on one side or other of this farm, and made a most imposing whole. To make bad worse, Grundy, instead of taking off his hat when he met the old squire, began now to lift up his own head very high; built a grand house on the land plump opposite to the squire's hall-gates; has brought a grand wife—a rich citizen's daughter; set up a smart carriage; and as the old squire is riding out on his old horse Jack, with his groom behind him, on a roan pony with a whitish mane and tail, the said groom having his master's great coat strapped to his back, as he always has on such occasions, drives past with a dash and a cool impudence that are most astonishing.

The only comfort that the old squire has in the case is talking of the fellow's low origin. "Only to think," says he, "that this fellow's father hadn't even wood enough to make a wheel-barrow till my family helped him; and I have seen this scoundrel himself scraping manure in the high roads, before he went to the village school in the morning, with his toes peeping out of his shoes, and his shirt hanging like a rabbit's tail out of his ragged trowsers; and now the puppy talks of 'my carriage,' and 'my footman,' and says that 'he and his lady purpose to spend the winter in the town,' meaning London!"

Wagstaff laughs at the squire's little criticism on Abel Grundy, and shakes his head; but he can not shake the chagrin out of the old gentleman's heart. Abel Grundy's upstart greatness will be the death of the OLD SQUIRE.

* * * * *

THE YOUNG SQUIRE.

By smiling fortune blessed With large demesnes, hereditary wealth. SOMERVILLE.

The Old Squire and the Young Squire are the antipodes of each other. They are representatives of two entirely different states of society in this country; the one, but the vestige of that which has been; the other, the full and perfect image of that which is. The old squires are like the last fading and shriveled leaves of autumn that yet hang on the tree. A few more days will pass; age will send one of his nipping nights, and down they will twirl, and be swept away into the oblivious hiding-places of death, to be seen no more. But the young squire is one of the full-blown blossoms of another summer. He is flaunting in the sunshine of a state of wealth and luxury, which we, as our fathers in their days did, fancy can by no possibility be carried many degrees farther, and yet we see it every day making some new and extraordinary advance.

It is obvious that there are many intervening stages of society, among our country gentry, between the old squire and the young, as there are intermediate degrees of age. The old squires are those of the completely last generation, who have outlived their contemporaries, and have made a dead halt on the ground of their old habits, sympathies, and opinions, and are resolved to quit none of them for what they call the follies and new-fangled notions of a younger, and, of course, more degenerate race. They are continually crying, "Oh, it never was so in my day!" They point to tea, and stoves in churches, and the universal use of umbrellas, parasols, cork-soled shoes, warming-pans, and carriages, as incontestible proofs of the rapidly-increasing effeminacy of mankind. But between these old veterans and their children, there are the men of the middle ages, who have, more or less, become corrupted with modern ways and indulgences; have, more or less, introduced modern furniture, modern hours, modern education, and tastes, and books; and have, more or less, fallen into the modern custom of spending a certain part of the year in London. With these we have nothing whatever to do. The old squire is the landmark of the ancient state of things, and his son Tom is the epitome of the new; all between is a mere transition and evanescent condition.

Tom Chesselton was duly sent by his father to Eton as a boy, where he became a most accomplished scholar in cricket, boxing, horses, and dogs, and made the acquaintance of several lords, who taught him the way of letting his father's money slip easily through his fingers without burning them, and engrafted him besides with a fine stock of truly aristocratic tastes, which will last him his whole life. From Eton he was duly transferred to Oxford, where he wore his gown and trencher-cap with a peculiar grace, and gave a classic finish to his taste in horses, in driving, and in ladies. Having completed his education with great eclat, he was destined by his father to a few years' soldiership in the militia, as being devoid of all danger, and moreover, giving opportunities for seeing a great deal of the good old substantial families in different parts of the kingdom. But Tom turned up his nose, or rather his handsome upper lip, with a most consummate scorn at so groveling a proposal, and assured his father that nothing but a commission in the Guards, where several of his noble friends were doing distinguished honor to their country, by the display of their fine figures, would suit him. The old gentleman shrugged his shoulders and was silent, thinking that the six thousand pounds purchase-money would be quite as well at fifteen per cent. in turnpike shares a little longer. But Tom, luckily, was not doomed to rusticate long in melancholy under his patrimonial oaks: his mother's brother, an old bachelor of immense wealth, died just in time, leaving Tom's sister, Lady Spankitt, thirty thousand pounds in the funds; and Tom, as heir-at-law, his great Irish estates. Tom, on the very first vacancy, bought into the Guards, and was soon marked out by the ladies as one of the most distingue officers that ever wore a uniform. In truth, Tom was a very handsome fellow; that he owed to his parents, who, in their day, were as noble-looking a couple as ever danced at a county-ball, or graced the balcony of a race-stand.

Tom soon married; but he did not throw himself away sentimentally on a mere face; he achieved the hand of the sister of one of his old college chums, and now brother-officer—the Lady Barbara Ridemdown. An earl's daughter was something in the world's eye; but such an earl's daughter as Lady Barbara, was the height of Tom's ambition. She was equally celebrated for her wit, her beauty, and her large fortune. Tom had won her from amid the very blaze of popularity and the most splendid offers. Their united fortunes enabled them to live in the highest style. Lady Barbara's rank and connections demanded it, and the spirit of our young squire required it as much. Tom Chesselton disdained to be a whit behind any of his friends, however wealthy or high titled. His tastes were purely aristocratic; with him, dress, equipage, and amusements, were matters of science. He knew, both from a proud instinct and from study, what was precisely the true ton in every article of dress or equipage, and the exact etiquette in every situation. But Lady Barbara panted to visit the Continent, where she had already spent some years, and which presented so many attractions to her elegant tastes. Tom had elegant tastes, too, in his way; and to the Continent they went. The old squire never set his foot on even the coast of Calais: when he has seen it from Dover, he has only wished that he could have a few hundred tons of gunpowder, and blow it into the air; but Tom and Lady Barbara have lived on the Continent for years.

This was a bitter pill for the old squire. When Tom purchased his commission in the Guards, and when he opened a house like a palace, on his wedding with Lady Barbara, the old gentleman felt proud of his son's figure, and proud of his connections. "Ah," said he, "Tom's a lad of spirit; he'll sow his wild oats, and come to his senses presently." But when he fairly embarked for France, with a troop of servants, and a suite of carriages, like a nobleman, then did the old fellow fairly curse and swear, and call him all the unnatural and petticoat-pinioned fools in his vocabulary, and prophesy his bringing his ninepence to a groat. Tom and Lady Barbara, however, upheld the honor of England all over the Continent. In Paris, at the baths of Germany, at Vienna, Florence, Venice, Rome, Naples—every where, they were distinguished by their fine persons, their fine equipage, their exquisite tastes, and their splendid entertainments. They were courted and caressed by all the distinguished, both of their own countrymen and of foreigners. Tom's horses and equipage were the admiration of the natives. He drove, he rode, he yachted, to universal admiration; and, meantime, his lady visited all the galleries and works of art, and received in her house all the learned and the literary of all countries. There, you always found artists, poets, travelers, critics, dilettanti, and connoisseurs, of all nations and creeds.

They have again honored their country with their presence; and who so much the fashion as they? They are, of course, au fait in every matter of taste and fashion; on all questions of foreign life, manners, and opinions, their judgment is the law. Their town-house is in Eaton-square; and what a house is that! What a paradise of fairy splendor! what a mine of wealth, in the most superb furniture, in books in all languages, paintings, statuary, and precious fragments of the antique, collected out of every classical city and country. If you see a most exquisitely tasteful carriage, with a most fascinatingly beautiful lady in it, in the park, amid all the brilliant concourse of the ring, you may be sure you see the celebrated Lady Barbara Chesselton; and you can not fail to recognize Tom Chesselton the moment you clap eyes on him, by his distinguished figure, and the splendid creature on which he is mounted—to say nothing of the perfection of his groom, and the steed which he also bestrides. Tom never crosses the back of a horse of less value than a thousand pounds; and if you want to know really what horses are, you must go down to his villa at Wimbledon, if you are not lucky enough to catch a sight of him proceeding to a levee, or driving his four-in-hand to Ascot or Epsom. All Piccadilly has been seen to stand, lost in silent admiration, as he has driven his splendid britchzka along it, with his perfection of a little tiger by his side; and such cattle as never besides were seen in even harness of such richness and elegance. Nay, some scores of ambitious young whips became sick of their envy of his superb gauntlet driving-gloves.

But, in fact, in Tom's case, as in all others, you have only to know his companions to know him; and who are they but Chesterfield, Conyngham, D'Orsay, Eglintoun, my Lord Waterford, and men of similar figure and reputation. To say that he is well known to all the principal frequenters of the Carlton Club; that his carriages are of the most perfect make ever turned out by Windsor; that his harness is only from Shipley's; and that Stultz has the honor of gracing his person with his habiliments; is to say that our young squire is one of the most perfect men of fashion in England. Lady Barbara and himself have a common ground of elegance of taste, and knowledge of the first principles of genuine aristocratic life; but they have very different pursuits, arising from the difference of their genius, and they follow them with the utmost mutual approbation.

Lady Barbara is at once the worshiped beauty, the woman of fashion, and of literature. No one has turned so many heads, by the loveliness of her person, and the bewitching fascination of her manners, as Lady Barbara. She is a wit, a poetess, a connoisseur in art; and what can be so dangerously delightful as all these characters in a fashionable beauty, and a woman, moreover, of such rank and wealth? She does the honors of her house to the mutual friends and noble connections of her husband and herself with a perpetual grace; but she has, besides, her evenings for the reception of her literary and artistic acquaintance and admirers. And who, of all the throng of authors, artists, critics, journalists, connoisseurs, and amateurs, who flock there are not her admirers? Lady Barbara Chesselton writes travels, novels, novellets, philosophical reflections, poems, and almost every species of thing which ever has been written—such is the universality of her knowledge, experience, and genius: and who does not hasten to be the first to pour out in reviews, magazines, daily and hebdomadal journals, the earliest and most fervid words of homage and admiration? Lady Barbara edits an annual, and is a contributor to the "Keepsake;" and in her kindness, she is sure to find out all the nice young men about the press; to encourage them by her smile, and to raise them, by her fascinating conversation and her brilliant saloons, above those depressing influences of a too sensitive modesty, which so weighs on the genius of the youth of this age; so that she sends them away, all heart and soul, in the service of herself and literature, which are the same thing; and away they go, extemporizing praises on her ladyship, and spreading them through leaves of all sizes, to the wondering eyes of readers all the world over. Publishers run with their unsalable manuscripts, and beg Lady Barbara to have the goodness to put her name on the title, knowing by golden experience that one stroke of her pen, like the point of a galvanic wire, will turn all the dullness of the dead mass into flame. Lady Barbara is not barbarous enough to refuse so simple and complimentary a request; nay, her benevolence extends on every hand. Distressed authors, male and female, who have not her rank, and, therefore, most clearly not her genius, beg her to take their literary bantlings under her wing; and with a heart, as full of generous sympathies as her pen is of magic, she writes but her name on the title as an "Open Sesame!" and lo! the dead become alive; her genius permeates the whole volume, which that moment puts forth wings of popularity, and flies into every bookseller's shop and every circulating library in the kingdom.