directly from the atmosphere, do so with instruments | blazing hot. A dip in the pellucid Lake of Zug But the sun was hiding his head, and we had still a similar in principle to soine of those noticed above, but we found to be delightfully refreshing. We had great hill to climb unguided, so we had to cut short varying much in form and appendages. The water- visions of doing something considerable on this day, our meditations among these tombs. Our ascent, scorpion (Nepa cinerea) is provided with two long and therefore we pushed on in defiance of the heat. however, still kept the whole forcibly in our mind, for respiratory tubes, each composed of two pieces, grooved We had gone a very few miles beyond Zug, when the we had to pass up many hundreds of feet among the internally, and meeting each other very closely at the mists cleared away from the brow of a stately lion- blocks of stone which had been projected up the acedges, thus forming an elongated siphon for convey-shaped mountain, which our map told us must be the clivity by the impetus of their fall. When we had ing air to each side of the body. The Dytiscidæ, so celebrated Righi, from whose summit is to be seen the climbed up still higher and looked round, the whole often previously alluded to for their numerous pecu- great show of the panorama of the Alps; and we re- scene was again presented to us more amply than ever, liarities, rise to the surface of the water when they solved, if possible, to reach its top that night. We but in the silent gloom of twilight. The path here need fresh air, and push the hinder segment of their had not travelled far when we met with an ingenuous became steep and rude, and by its side is a succession body above the surface, that part being so constructed shepherd, who, descrying with benevolent skill our of chapels, thirteen in number, marking so many as to admit and retain it. Many kinds of larvæ which intention, made strenuous offers of his services in aid- stations into which the narrative of our Lord's passion are always submerged, never coming in contact with ing us to discover the route. I made an attempt on is divided. We thought there was a unison in the the external atmosphere, would speedily perish unless this occasion to take advantage of the stranger's privi- feeling created by these little gloomy places of worsome special arrangement were made for their welfare. lege, and to overlook the real motives of this kind pro-ship, and that which had been suggested by the tragic They are, accordingly, provided with gills or branchia, posal-thanking the swain for his disinterested proffer, spot they overlooked. To the Catholic inhabitants of which separate and imbibe the air mechanically mixed and expressing a strong repugnance to coming under the district, with whom the tragedy is a household with water, in a manner quite analogous to that prac so great an obligation to one on whom I had so few event, this association must be deep and solemn. The tised by fishes. claims. I met the usual and deserved fate of insin- chapels are in themselves sufficiently impressive; cerity: the man had no scruples whatever in putting standing in rocky recesses or under the shadow of his proffers in the most mercenary shape; and I soon dusky pines. When you enter them, you see a large found, that so far from hints and misunderstandings crucifix, or a mater dolorosa, looking ghastly in the being efficacious, a downright stern refusal was darkness. Here Wordsworth's fine lines are forcibly scarcely a protection from the resoluteness of his im- recalled— portunity. Having at last shaken off this incubus, we proceeded rejoicing in our liberty. The mists were clearing wider and wider away; and at length we saw, rising up to our right, heights that put the sedate and sombre Righi to scorn-the shattered and spiky top of Pilatus basking in the afternoon sun. Such are a few instances of design as manifested in this class of animals, and of the elaborate care and forethought that have been exerted for their preservation and enjoyment. Similar examples might be multiplied to an extent nearly commensurate with all that is known of the history of these animals; for almost the whole of that history might be so digested as to form one continuous illustration of the same great truth. Whenever we see an apparent inaptitude of means to an end, an apparently cumbrous and unnecessary apparatus, the seeming defect should be ascribed to our own ignorance. Whenever the purpose wrought out is thought to be unimportant, we ought to consider that we are judging of its utility by a wrong standard. The very instances which present the greatest difficulties and appear most anomalous, are just most likely to be those which, if fully understood, would afford the most convincing demonstration of intelligent design and benevolent intention. PEDESTRIAN EXCURSION IN SWITZERLAND. [We have much pleasure in presenting the first of a series of papers, descriptive of the pedestrian excursion of a friend through part of Switzerland and Savoy in the autumn of 1841, at a time when one of ourselves was engaged in visiting the country. The route being considerably different from what was adopted on that occasion, and more among scenes of a romantic character, it is believed that the papers will form a suitable appendix to the articles" A Few Weeks on the Continent." The writer commences his journal from Zurich.] AUGUST 17.—It was a fine misty morning when we— that is, two companions and myself-left Zurich by the steamer for Horgen, a town half way up the lake, whence it was our design to commence a pedestrian tour of some days, without any very definite views as to the direction in which we should bend our steps. In the spirit of pure independence, each one had a knapsack strapped on his shoulders, and carried with hirm is full equipment for the journey. Nor were we content with a provision of raiment. Taking it into consideration that we should have to wander among barbarous regions, and that starvation is a great neutraliser of the enjoyments of travelling, we made an effort to victual ourselves in anticipation of any emergency. The chief article we laid in was a huge sausage a congeries accumulated on such gigantic principles, that among its contents was a tongue, whole and entire. This monster-sausage there was no conveying without a special receptacle, and therefore we had to purchase a basket for it-which, by the way, though bought in pure simplicity and ignorance of the basket-trade, was declared on our return, by those cognisant of such matters, to be a miracle of art, and of a species not to be purchased in any part of the united kingdom. We were not ashamed of a respectably-sized flask, hung like a powder-pouch by a ribbon, for who would grudge a few draughts of light wine to persons struggling with such perils and fatigues as we proposed to encounter? We had pipes, also, of various shapes, but mostly considerable in size, which gave us quite a pastoral look. When we add to this that our dress involved straw-hats and blouses, the idea that frequently crossed our minds will be readily sympathised with, namely, that being men of business, and of a staid and sedate walk in life, had any of our usual friends met us in our own street, attired as we were when we stepped from the steamer at Horgen, he would have been undoubtedly justified in taking measures for having us conveyed to the nearest lunatic asylum. Horgen is a small town scattered over a steep declivity facing the lake. We made our way through it as fast as we could, for we longed to try our strength on a Swiss brae. We found the Albis ridge a pretty smart pull, but altogether on a small scale. When we reached the top, we were disappointed in the expected view, for the mists with which the air had been for some days impregnated, though they showed a laudable intention of making off, were still lingering here and there in groups, like a party of disagreeable people, who, after they have fully announced their departure, spend a world of time in bidding each other good-by. In our descent we entered an unassuming gasthaus, where we comforted ourselves with bread and cheese and wine; after which we proceeded on our route, and finally we entered Zug, along with a diligence, bringing with it some of our fellow-passengers in the steamer. It was now high noon the sun had pushed for himself a hole in the clouds, and fell upon our heads Passing the village of Arth, at the extremity of the Lake of Zug, our guide-books prepared us for beholding one of the most awful scenes in the world-the place where the fallen mountain of the Rossberg had overwhelmed the village of Goldau. This catastrophe occurred in the year 1506. The summer of that year had been warm and rainy. The upper stratum of the hill, a sort of conglomerate, slopes down towards Goldau at a great declivity; and as the conglomerate is separated from the stratum below by a layer of clay, it is supposed that the rain oozing through crevices (to which conglomerate is liable) had prepared a sort of slimy inclined plane for the superincumbent mass to slide along. Be this the cause or not, down came a cake of conglomerate 3 miles long, 1000 feet broad, and 100 feet thick, with all its trees and fields, "as if on earth Winds under ground, or waters forcing way, "Doom'd as we are, our native dust The altar, to deride the fane * * Hail to the firm, unmoving cross The chapels form a train to the church of Maria zum There were houses, fields, and gardens, on the moving slope there were smiling villages in the valley into which it came hurtling down. Imagination is sufficient to supply the appalling picture; it needs no description. The summit of the Rossberg was 5150 feet above the level of the sea; the valley into which the mass fell is 1500 feet above the same level: thus, the cake of rock slid down about 3500 feet, and, losing its original compactness, reached the bottom a chaotic mass of broken rock, earth, and mud. Three villages, with 450 human beings, were destroyed by the direct effects of the fall; and so much of the heap was driven into the Lake of Lowertz, five miles off, that the August 18.—Dreaming of any thing but the Alps waters heaved up seventy feet above their level, swept and the Righi, I was roused at four o'clock by a the opposite shore, and brought back a pillage of simultaneous and indomitable sort of disturbance, houses, trees, and human beings, in the bosom of the created by the general rising of all the inmates. So receding wave. Eleven tourists were approaching little had the gloom of the previous evening prepared Goldau to climb the Righi when the event occurred; us for what met our eyes, that had it appeared from seven of them had entered the village, when the others, my bedroom window in Street, it could not more lingering a little behind, observed the surface of the have astounded me. Right before the window, as if mountain in motion, and stood gazing on the ominous they had been on the opposite side of a street, rose the phenomenon. Suddenly the scene changed; these white Alps, looking in the dim ante-sunrise light, as members of the party had not entered the course if some lurid atmosphere had been drawn like a thin taken by the descending rock, but they were so near curtain before them; so thin, that while it gave every its verge that the minor detached particles flew over thing its own strange hue, it obscured nothing. Here their heads, obscuring the light of day. They fled was what we had come all the way to see; and we alback, and, happily for themselves, in the right direc-lowed that it had presented itself in its most attraction. When the turmoil was over, they returned in search of their friends; but found that a new mountain had reared its head over the spot. Of those who had been carried down on the surface of the slope, some few miraculously escaped with their lives, and were dug out of the ruin by the neighbours; but the spade and the pickaxe might as well have tried to uproot Mont Blanc, as to be of service to those in the valley. Their bones are deep hidden in the crust of the earth, where they will remain till our planet itself comes to pieces. tive form. It was almost unwillingly that we kept our eyes off this scene to hurry our partial toilet, for it was absolutely necessary for our character that we should be at the top of the hill-half an hour's walk (we had not been so fortunate as to light on the inn next to the top)-by sunrise. As we went we saw one by one the cold icy peaks blaze up with a deep roseate glow as if touched by fire, when each in succession caught the horizontal rays of the sun. We were not quite in time to see the luminary touch the horizon with his upper arc, but we saw all the effect, As we entered the mouth of the valley between the and we could not better express our satisfaction than Rossberg and the Righi, we soon noticed a great red by observing that the sight was worth coming so scar, marking the place from which the rock had far to see. Half way round the circle of the horizon, separated; it looked as fresh in its contrast with the to the south and east, rose the snowy peaks in multigrey old rocks and the dark pines, as if the tragedy tudes innumerable. So perfectly clear was the atmohad happened yesterday. As we advanced it gaped sphere, and so completely had the clouds of yesterday wider, and we saw the traces of the stony cataract hidden themselves in unknown corners, that the giant sweeping down from it into the valley. Every step masses appeared small and near, and all their parts brought us more into the midst of the desolation. The were distinctly seen; their forest sides, their preciroad wound up irregularly among the fragments; and pices, their blue glaciers, and their white snowy cones, at last we reached the top of this sepulchral hill, and all appearing as if their scale were reduced, and as if looked around us on a wide expanse of stony desola-the mighty Alps were set before us in miniature; in tion-a ghastly contrast to the luxuriant fields and short, the whole seemed an exquisite model; and it orchards we had just passed. There were one or two was difficult to imagine that in any thing so pretty small lakes on the surface of the hill-portions evi- and peaceful looking there were at that moment reardently of the Lake of Lowertz, which the heap had ing torrents, and avalanches, and stormy winds, and caught up and restrained in its descent. Here and thunder-splitting icebergs. On the other side of the there were gnarled old trees, which had been carried panorama lay the fruitful Aargau and the canton of down in the general ruin, still clasping some portion Berne, stretching, with their green hills and forests of their native earth, and managing to lift their heads and pastures, into Germany and France. Beneath us above the stones and live. lay the lakes of Lucerne, Zug, and Sarnen, yet far be low the reach of the sun, with their outlines clear and have been concentrated. The main and general prin- | have occurred in pits in the Tyne and Wear district precise, like drops of molten metal that had fallen into the hollows of the earth's surface. There was a very respectable crowd assembled to see the sun go through his performance, for this somewhere about his two-millionth time; and several young Englishmen, clustered round a wooden scaffold or stand, and talking loudly to each other in a most how-de'doish and 'pon-honourish tone, gave the spot quite a sporting character, and reminded one of an English race-course. We soon began to feel that we were 6000 feet above the level of the sea, and to desiderate the warmth of exercise. The hoar-frost, indeed, lay thick, and, notwithstanding the sun, the air pierced us. Nor was it difficult, at least so far as I myself felt, to withdraw from the scene, however striking; for, after all, it was but a show. Now, I can never be content with merely gazing at scenery from a distance; I must have a sort of manipulation of it; I must smell the fragrant pines, scramble among the rocks, or peep into the abysses of the waterfalls; and so, instead of lingering to contemplate the view from the Righi, I felt excited by what I saw of it, to march immediately into the interior recesses of the great array of mountains it presented to my view. After breakfast, we took the descent leisurely in the direction of Küssnacht. We passed through multitudes of the beautiful fawn-coloured cattle fed on this mountain-amounting to several thousands in number. A large proportion of the hill-fed cattle of Switzerland have bells suspended by their necks, for the better tracking of their course when they wander from the herd. These are not the little tinkling instruments with which we adorn a bell-wether, but huge sonorous things as large and as loud as a dinnerbell. Hence, when one comes, as is not unfrequently the case, on a herd of several hundreds grazing in a narrow glen, the effect is most bewildering; it is as if half the church steeples in Europe had taken to dancing a saraband together. Almost at the termination of the descent there is a grey old ruin, which tradition marks as the fortalice of Gesler. We here made a slight detour to visit the place where the tyrant is said to have been shot, and where a chapel is dedicated to the act of wild justice. The spot is still what tradition describes it to have been when the deed was done a deep rutty path, with abrupt banks surmounted by trees and brushwood, behind which the archer awaited his enemy. So completely does it still answer the description, that one is apt to suspect it to have been tampered with, for the trees that shaded Tell must by this time have disappeared, or would have been gnarled and venerable with age, whereas those which now occupy the spot seem fresh and young. Over the door of the chapel is a rude representation of the scene of violence. Within the walls so singularly consecrated we were importuned by beggars; it seemed a strange spot for a Swiss to choose for the exhibition of the most degrading national characteristic. In Küssnacht there is a church not large but venerable, and in a chapel adjoining lie several skulls rotting on the floor. It was past noon when we left this village, and we wandered from it along the pleasant banks of the lake till we reached Lucerne, where we spent the evening. NORTHERN COLLIERIES. THIRD ARTICLE. IN no collieries in the world has the practice of ventilation been more scientifically investigated and carried out than in those of Newcastle. In most other coalmining districts it is a matter little understood and less enforced. Nor, indeed, is it so essentially brought under notice in any coal-field as in the northern; for the very magnitude of the mines and the mining interests renders the keenest attention to this subject absolutely indispensable to the daily existence of the pits in a working condition. I will endeavour, as briefly as may be, to notice the main features of the scheme, although, from its technical nature, I can scarcely hope to make it more than generally understood here. It is probably well known that the object of the ventilating system is to clear the pit of the noxious gases exhaling from the coal, and thereby to enable the miners to exist and breathe freely in the remotest parts of the mine; as also to enable them, under certain restrictions, to employ candles and lights without danger of producing explosions. ciples which have been carried out into their existing detailed system by the improvements of John Buddle, Esq., and other experienced viewers, may be said to resolve themselves into these four particulars :1. The downcast shaft. 2. The upcast shaft. 3. The free course for the entrance, transit, and exit of the atmospheric air. 4. The rarefying furnace (placed at the bottom of the upcast shaft). If these four desiderata be supplied, the ventilating system may be considered as nearly perfect as possible. The agent of the ventilation is the difference between the weights of two columns of air, one of which is at the natural temperature, and the other rarefied by the heat of the furnace; and this furnace, to draw the foul air through the shafts and passages, is the grand engine of ventilation. The furnace is usually five or six feet wide, and is placed at some little distance from the bottom of the shaft. It is constantly burning, and repeatedly supplied with coal, and over it the return air passes by day and by night. If, however, the returns become so impregnated with the inflammable gases that they would take fire at the furnace, they are in that case conducted over the furnace in a separate closed channel, called a " dumb furnace," so as to enter the shaft some distance above the place where the fiery furnace enters it. By this very ingenious method a full draught is produced, as in a common chimney, without incurring any risk of explosion. It may be, I trust, understood from this brief notice, that the great object to be accomplished in endeavouring thoroughly to ventilate a coal-pit, is to cause the currents of pure air to go through the mine in much the same way as a human being would do who was desirous of exploring every corner of it. To induce the air to perform this journey, it is coaxed and wheedled round corner after corner, up this passage and down that, by all the means that can be devised to act upon it. It is astonishing to witness the varied contrivances for securing its presence or turning it off, as if it were a stream of water flowing down a moderate inclination. Sometimes it is desired to force it up onehalf or side of a passage, and to make it return by the other half or side; and this is accomplished by the erection of a wooden partition all along the passage. By the same means, also, it may be made to fork into two distinct splits, one pursuing its course to the right and the other to the left. By the aid of the crossings or arches, it may even be compelled to perform a summerset, and to adopt almost any course and shape. When it is necessary to put a stop to the flow of a current of air in any of the main-ways of the mine, through which there is a constant transit going forward, there are erected wooden doors, generally called "trap-doors," and these are opened and closed by children of from seven to ten years of age, who sit behind them, all the time that the pit is at work, for that purpose. There are also some other kinds of doors occasionally employed in less important places in the mine, which are not attended by any one. Upon the quantity of air passing along the main air-course, chiefly depends the safety of a fiery mine. The superintendants, therefore, are constantly watch ful of the supply, and its measure is sometimes taken. It has been asserted, on good authority, as a general rule, that, in extensive mines, a current of little more than three feet per second can be calculated upon. The mode of ascertaining these measurements is by timing the rate of travel of the smoke of a few grains of exploded gunpowder, and less accurately by the state of the flame of a candle, in walking at certain rates of speed. When the steel mill was the only kind of light used in mines, it was found very difficult to see at all in the deeper recesses of the workings, where, from the greater discharge of gas, the sparks of the mill sometimes seemed to fall like drops of blood, with a slow motion. The Davy lamp, however, affords a tolerable light, and may be safely taken where the steel mill could not be allowed. Most persons are aware that a Davy lamp consists of a wick fed with oil, enclosed in a wire-gauze cylinder, the apertures of the wire-gauze being extremely small, at least 625 to the square inch. It was discovered by Sir Humphry Davy (although the priority of the discovery is not indisputable) that flame would not pass through these apertures. Within this cylinder, when the fire-damp encompassing it is to the air as 1 to 12, the flame of the wick is seen surrounded by the feeble blue flame of the gas. When The chief component part of inflammable pit-gases the proportion is as 1 to 5, 6, or 7, the cylinder is is carbureted hydrogen gas, mixed with unequal quan- filled with the flame of the fire-damp; but though the tities of olefiant, carbonic acid, nitrogen, and other wire-gauze becomes red-hot, the exterior air, even gases. They exhibit a very different degree of inflam-when explosive, is not kindled. The lamp is theremability when mixed with atmospheric air, according fore safe in the most dangerous atmospheres. Its to the different proportions they contain of nitrogen, safety depends upon the cooling agency of the wirecarbonic acid, and olefiant gases. The first two gases gauze exerted on the portion of gas burning within diminish, the last increases, their inflammability. The the cylinder. Although I found the perfect safety of larger the amount of atmospheric air with which they this lamp to be assumed by nearly all the viewers of can be mixed without losing their detonating power, the northern collieries-which fact would appear to the more dangerous are the explosive mixtures formed be a very strong evidence in its favour-yet by many by them in coal-mines. Sir Humphry Davy found the persons this is not considered to be sufficiently estamost readily-explosive mixture of fire-damp with com- blished. After lengthened inquiries and conversations mon air to be one measure of the inflammable gas to with the best authorities on both sides, I am inclined seven or eight of air. to conclude, that still more cogent proofs of insufficiency than have hitherto been adduced are requisite to overturn our faith in the original Davy lamp. As the pits in this great coal district abound in the inflammable gases, it is absolutely essential to adopt the most perfect system of ventilation that can be devised; and on this point the industry and ingenuity of the most eminent colliery superintendants appear to The subject of accidents in coal mines is palpably one of the very highest moment. In Mr Leifchild's Report is presented a detailed list of the accidents which from 1799 to May 1841; and although, from the exceeding difficulty of obtaining statistical accounts in the collieries, I have little doubt that it is incomplete, yet in this it appears that, at the least, fifteen hundred lives have been sacrificed in this space of little more than forty years. The majority of these have been lost by explosions, and not a large proportion by ordinary casualties. Independently of carelessness on the part of men and boys, there are natural causes productive of these catastrophes. The ventilation of a pit may be sufficient on one day and not on another; for a change in the state or temperature of the common atmosphere will necessarily alter the efficiency of the ventilating current. In the recesses of deep mines, where the gas is naturally the most rapidly generated, the temperature would seem to continue nearly uniform throughout the entire year. When, therefore, the air of the day is warmer, and consequently more rarefied than that of the mine, it has no natural tendency to rush into the shaft. On the contrary, however, an increased coldness in the air of the day causes the heavier atmosphere to descend the shaft, and the warmer current to escape from it. Now, an analysis of 71 explosions, causing an aggregate loss of nearly 1000 lives, has proved that 8 of these catastrophes occurred in winter, 13 in spring, 20 in summer, and the remaining 30 in autumn. In these cases, therefore, it is extremely probable that the temperature of the atmosphere had a very close connexion with the derangement of the ventilation. The gases of the mine have been found to be contained, for the most part, in crevices which open upon the coal. The fissures of the roof are in some places very extensive, and may be considered as natural gasometers, out of which the gas, not having any outlet, is exuded by the process of distillation going on from the coal to an almost incredible extent. The resistance to this issue lies in the quantity of rock or coal by which it is pent back; and also, when the quantity is very trifling, or none, to the pressure of the atmosphere. When, therefore, a sudden depression in the mercury takes place (a change which has been so frequently noticed to precede explosions, that it would seem to afford an excellent warning for the necessity of active precautions), the feeders of gas, which were before in a manner dammed back by the pressure of the air, are permitted to issue and vitiate the circulating current of ventilating air, which now moves but sluggishly. Upon this vitiation increasing to the explosive point, the pit is in imminent danger. In addition to the natural causes of explosions, there exists the carelessness of the men, and particularly the carelessness of the little boys who have charge of the trap-doors mentioned above. These children, when tending very important doors, have nearly the sole responsibility of the safety of the mine. The neglect of their duty or the leaving open of a principal trap-door for a short period, would entirely derange the ventilation, first in that particular district of the mine, and subsequently in the whole of it. It may easily be conceived, that a dull child of eight or nine years of age can scarcely be brought to comprehend the enormous weight of responsibility that rests upon him. Out of some scores that I examined at length upon these points, I found scarcely one that was at all sensible of it. During my inspections of the collieries, I was engaged one Friday afternoon at Willington colliery, and had deemed it desirable to descend the pit and inspect the children at work, which I could not then do until the following Monday, as the Friday's work was nearly finished, and the Saturday was pay-day, and consequently a non-working day. I therefore arranged to descend on the Monday following. Fortunately for me, after-circumstances rendered my presence in another pit desirable. I say fortunately, inasmuch as on the Monday, April 19, 1841, at a quarter past one P. M., a terrific explosion blew the mine almost to pieces (as one of the survivors observed), and sacrificed the lives of thirty-two persons! I was at the scene of the catastrophe as soon as possible after its occurrence, and arrangements were kindly made for my descent. When I arrived at the bottom, I was perfectly astonished at the tremendous havoc caused, and the confusion of every thing around me. Nor was it altogether a scene of safety; for the recurrence of an explosion-not an unusual event after such an accident-and more especially a fall of stones from the roof, would have added me to the list of killed. To advance a single yard, I was compelled to follow my guide by scrambling over enormous masses of fallen stone, closing up half and sometimes nearly two-thirds of the height of the passage. The feeble light of the Davy was insufficient to prevent me from bruising myself most cruelly at times. One foot was frequently on a piece of sharp stone, while the other was in contact with some shivered fragments of waggons, or in a puddle of mud, caused by the vast quantity of water thrown down the pit to extinguish the fire, which at one time raged in the stables, near the shaft bottom. These unpleasantnesses, however, I did not consider so grievous as the sudden contact into which a fall placed me with a softer substance, which my elevated Davy discovered to me to be a dead horse; the hair of the animal seemed to be almost entirely singed off. A few yards farther, I encountered a body of men engaged in a mournful search for one of the four dead bodies as yet unrecovered. They had discovered the jacket of a poor missing boy when I arrived, and were engaged in deducing inferences from its position and condition as to the locality of the body. After my return to open day, I called at the houses of most of the bereaved relatives, and glanced at the bodies of the sufferers. Those who had been killed by the "stythe," or after-damp, appeared as if they had been suffocated. The face of one of them, a little boy, exhibited a serenity almost resembling that of pleasing sleep. But when I cast my eyes on the corpses of some who had been the immediate victims of the effects of the explosion, I was truly horrified. In fact, a more impressive and revolting sight than that presented by one or two of these could not be conceived. Faces blackened to the hue of coal itself, and features almost obliterated, were of the worst. One he said. The next morning I did boil it, but it was so thick it could not be drank. How to clarify it none of us knew-we drank tea for the present. I have my beds to make, my rooms to sweep, and my tables to set; but I am well and strong, and should not mind it (but I really feel the better for the exercise), if I knew how. Anne left us a large baking of bread. I looked forward with dismay to the time when that should be eaten up. We were reduced to the last loaf, and I begged my husband to ride over to the nearest neighbour (two miles) and get me some leaven; for I knew that bread required leaven, though did not know how to make it, and unfortunately my receipt-book was in a package of books not yet arrived. body appeared very much like a mass of charred wood, did not know, but I grated them into my flour, and I in which but little resemblance to the form of a human being could be traced; and the countenances of some others were most fearfully distorted. Recollections of the terrific appearance of some of these bodies haunted me for many weeks afterwards, and caused me deeply to rue my curiosity. THE PUZZLED HOUSEWIFE. [The following sketch by Miss Sedgwick, though applying to American ladies, cannot be read without advantage in our own country, where reversal of fortune is unhappily too often expe rienced, and becomes a cause of domestic distresses. We copy from an American periodical.] We have now, my young friends, to consider the domestic education of such of you as are the daughters of our rich merchants, successful professional men, or men of inherited fortune. If you are so fortunate as to live in the country, you will probably learn domestic economy from the necessity of your condition. Your opportunities of instruction may not be quite equal to Mary Bond's; but from the imperfections of our domestic service, from the incompetence of domestics, and the occasional impossibility of obtaining them, either the family wheels must sometimes stand still, or you must put your shoulder to them. Depend upon it, that if you are totally ignorant of domestic affairs, you are nearly as unfit to be a wife and mother as if you were lame in both feet and hands. But what shall we say to those unfortunate young persons who, bred up in luxurious establishments in town, are cut off from accidental and irresistible opportunities of acquiring a knowledge of domestic affairs? They are as ignorant of domestic processes as is the lily, that neither spins nor weaves, of the modes by which it is more gorgeously arrayed than Solomon in all his glory. This ignorance is all but an inevitable misfortune. There is an intrinsic difficulty in the case. All the arrangements of a town establishment, and all the arrangements of a town life, presuppose that the ladies of the house are to do nothing. Such ladies may be so fortunate as to secure competent, well-instructed, and faithful domestics, but such are rare birds in our land; and those to whose share they do not fall, must make up their account to having sometimes confusion and disorder in their establishments, to neglected children and displeased husbands, to finding they have been imposed upon, or, what is far more painful, that they have been unjust to their domestics. How is this to be avoided? Only by an all-conquering sense of duty on the part of the parent, or by the combined sense and virtue of self-training daughters. To show the disastrous and mortifying consequence of omitting this must have on a girl's education, we publish extracts from the letter of an accomplished friend, who, after keeping house for twelve years at New York, removed soon after a commercial crisis to one of the Western States. After describing the richness and exquisite beauty of the country about her, and the change in her husband from extreme dejection to cheerfulness, in consequence of the happy change in his pecuniary prospects, she says---" But what does all this avail me? I am a miserable, mortified woman. Don't be alarmed by my language. I have not yet broken any of the laws of the land, nor lost my husband's affections, though I am sure I deserve to lose them; but read on and pity me. You know I determined to be virtuously economical, so I brought but two servants This was rather a reduction from my usual establishment of six; but our fortune was reduced, and I wished to conform to my husband's circumstances. Anne was to be my woman of all work; she was country bred, and highly recommended; and the other, Rose O'Brien, was to be my children's nurse. with me. We sent on Anne some weeks before us to unpack the furniture, and get the house in order; and when we arrived, in nice order it was. Anne had found time for courtship; and the very day we arrived, she set off to be married to a young farmer at the head of the river. I submitted; I could do nothing else. Rose had been brought up to nursery work, and was almost as ignorant as myself of all other household work; and besides, my hands were almost full with my baby, who was cutting her eye-teeth. The first morning after our arrival, I determined to be energetic, and do my best to make my family comfortable till I could supply Anne's place; so I hurried on my dressing-gown, and went down to the kitchen to make the coffee. But how was it to be made? I ran up to ask Rose. She had always seen it made in a grecque;' so had I, but we had none. thought that if I let it soak long enough in boiling water, it would be as good as if poured through a grecque. Accordingly, I soaked it till I had everything else ready. Anne had left some nice little trout all prepared to fry. I put them in a utensil that I knew was called a frying-pan, and there they dried away to a coal. In attempting to cut the bread, I cut my thumb; it has been ever since nearly useless to me. What stuff is that?' asked my husband, when I poured out the coffee. I burst into tears, and confessed my ignorance. You should have boiled it, my dear,' The good dame sent me some hard, bitter cakes, which she called turnpike emptyings.' How to apply them I rose in my esteem; but, alas! my bread did not rise! but I assure you that I cry much oftener. All day and You laugh, my dear friend; I laugh, too, sometimes; all night I waited for the dough to rise. In the morning it was the same lump as when I mixed it. My husband suggested it might rise in the oven; this seemed to me a bright thought, and into the oven it went; but, alas! it came out even more solid than it went in. My children were actually crying for bread, and I had little better than a stone to give them. I went to my room. My beautiful Petrarca was lying on the table. I looked at it for a moment with a sort of loathing. I would gladly have given all my knowledge of Italian, of which I have felt proud, to know how to make bread. While I was lamenting my good-for-nothingness, my husband came in, and asked if he should unpack my piano. No, no,' I cried; 'I never will touch my piano again till I know how to make bread. Get me a horse if you love me, and let me ride over to that woman, and ask what she meant by sending those detestable turnpike emptyings.' By the time I got to Mrs Gates's my feelings were somewhat subdued, so that I asked very meekly for directions how to use the turnpikes. Gracious me!' exclaimed the good woman; I thought you knew as much as that!' I blushingly confessed I did not, and she gave me the directions. I went home, kneaded up my bread, and that evening's meal on the nice light loaf of my own making was, it seems to me, one of the happiest of my life. My greatest difficulty was overcome; but every day and hour I experience the evil of my ignorance. I have obtained a raw help-woman. She is strong and willing, but ignorant. If I only knew how to direct, she could execute. Yesterday my husband had some pork sent to him. I, without much reflection, expected it to come as from the market, all cut up and prepared; but to my utter horror, the animals were whole. I am sure the family, consisting of my husband, myself, Pat, Biddy, and Rose, in joint council over the swine, were a group for Hogarth. Ah! my friend, 'you who live at home at ease' little know the trials of ladies in the West. My husband had last week to go to Chicago to meet some gentlemen from Philadelphia on business. Those shirts,' said he, showing me the linen done up (undone rather) by Biddy, are too bad to go among civilised people. Could you contrive, my dear wife, to have one or two decently ironed for me ? I faintly answered, 'Yes.' Biddy is quite competent to washing, so I gave her my orders, and then asked Rose, as a particular favour, to iron the shirts. She replied, pettishly, that she could not do every thing;' and I, not accustomed, you know, to submit to any impertinence from my people, retorted sharply. The consequence was that she fell to crying. If she could not plase me,' she said, she could lave me; it was Anne had invited her to come and live all the same as a sister with her, and sure that would be more plasing than living at service, and not giving satisfaction; there was no need of living a servant any way in a new country where there was room for all, and plenty.' I am wearying you, but I must write of what my hands and heart are full. I ironed the shirts myself. What a labour it was! How often I thought of the weekly replenishing of my presses with clean clothes, never bestowing one thought on the labour they cost. My ironing turned out better than I hoped. I took infinite pains, you may be sure; and when I felt the glow of success, and my husband thanked me heartily, I fell to a little moralising, and came to the conclusion, that the humblest service may receive a certain dignity from the motives and feelings that attended them. "You who were informed of all our domestic difficul ties in which I was involved by my ignorance, when I first came, would be delighted now to see how comfortably 1 get on. I thought, for some time, it was impossible to have any domestic comfort in the west; but impossible," if not, as Napoleon said, the adjective of fools,' is that of imbeciles. I was determined, as far as I could, to make my husband and my children comfortable, and I resigned myself to being a household drudge for the rest of my life. Household work cannot, as some imagine, be done extempore, nor is there a royal road to domestic economy any more than to any other art or science. I often failed, but I learned from failure as well as from success. Practice made that easy which at first seemed impossible. I sumed in sighing over it, and I often find my hands are can now despatch a bit of work in the time I at first conperforming their work like machinery, while my mind is worker is habit! When we cannot obtain domestics, we wandering over earth, sea, and skies. What a wonderdo not now suffer. Such occasions are, however, rare. I now know how to direct them. They are well called hand; the employment must be 'head' to them. And now, my dear friend, those branches of my education which, in my first despair, I thought utterly lost upon me, have assumed their right position, and household drudgery takes its subordinate place. When I know that the material wants of my family are provided for, I devote myself to the intellectual education of my children; and here, far from schools and masters, I pour into their minds the knowledge I acquired in my youth. Conscious that I do not neglect their domestic education, I feel that I have a right to impart to them my accomplishments; and those accomplishments that, when 1 first came here, seemed to me a mockery, somewhat like an imperial robe to a wretch starving for bread, are now the solace and delight of my family. Surrounded as you are by all the luxuries of civilisation, I will venture to say that you can have no conception of the enjoyment of a piano in the west.' It is a social blessing. I cannot believe that an Italian opera ever gave more genuine delight, than do our little family concerts. Kate plays duets with me on the piano, and my husband accompanies with his flute little Molly's guitar. Of course my girls have had no teacher but myself. You who can see every day fine pictures and engravings, can hardly imagine our excitement, when one of my girls has made an accurate sketch from nature, or copied a wild flower well. As to books, from the Bible, first and best, down to the last periodical which the post brings us, you must be cut off from the civilised world as we are to know their full value. Think what it is, during our long days and evenings of unbroken leisure, to be in intimate communion with such spirits as Milton, Dante, Petrarch, Fenelon, and Cervantes. How often do I bless the education which enabled me to make acquaintance with these authors, and to introduce my children to them. And now I feel the full value of my late domestic education, which enables me to enjoy, with a quiet conscience, the high and elegant pursuits for which my early instruction alone qualified me.” SIR EDWARD L. BULWER'S POEMS.* NUMEROUS poetical failures having established the fact that a successful writer of prose, even where a brilliant imagination is one of his admitted characteristics, is not by consequence a good poet, we took up Sir E L. Bulwer's recent and first unmixed volume of verse without any positive expectations as to the quality of its contents. We have been much pleased, how ever, with the work, and, on reflection, conceive it to be such a one as might have been looked for from his very popular pen. The pieces are thoughtful, polished, and epigrammatic; and, as such, will by no At the same time, they certainly show his mind to be means tend to lower the reputation of their author. deficient, on the whole, in "the inspiration and faculty divine," which is often recognisable in the lays that issue from the lowly cot, while unapparent in the nations of intellects confessedly powerful and the roughly accomplished. The strains before us are not spontaneous outbursts of feeling, such as flow irrepressibly from the genuine poet of nature, and have their source in an extreme sensibility to her beauties. It is not the daisy by the wayside that awakens the muse of Sir E. L. Bulwer, but an "incident" in some one's ema The great domestic problem at present to be solved, is how I shall provide my family with soap. I have abun-memoirs, or a "thought" caught from the stores of dant materials left by the squatters on our place, but, though I have attended three courses of chemical lectures, I know no better than Biddy does how they should be combined; and she could as easily transmute lead to gold as ashes and fat to soap. My prospects, however, are brightening. Mrs Gates has promised to lend me her daughter Louisa for a month. She is to instruct Biddy and me. Louisa is what I now call an accomplished girl. Depend on it, the meaning of terms changes with our experience. At this moment I would give my accomplishments-all my knowledge of French, Italian, and music, for Louisa Gates's ability. You will say, perhaps, that I exaggerate their importance, owing to my present unfortunate position. Believe me, my friend, it can scarcely be exaggerated. A wife must be responsible for the domestic comfort of her husband and children. It is important to our concerns that my husband should give all his time to his own department of business; but he is every day interrupted by some domestic necessity that I do not know how to supply, or some petty embarrassment that I cannot relieve. I feel that I am not a help-meet to him. He has not home comforts. He is most kind and forbearing, and 1 am doing what can be done at my age to rectify the errors in my education." In justice to the writer of the foregoing, I shall give a short extract from a letter written by her after a residence in "the west" of some four or five years. the scholar's library. Nevertheless, such as they are, many of his pieces are very beautiful; and this an extract or two will satisfactorily prove. The following poem seems to us filled with thoughts of a very lofty description : (In loftier pomp than waking life had known), * Eva, a True Story, and other Tales and Poems, by Sir E. L. Bulwer, Bart. London: Saunders and Otley. 1842. Ilad Plato never spoken from his cell, Or his high harp blind Homer never strung ?- And now so still! This, Cicero, is thy heart; I ope thy pages, Milton, and, behold, Thy spirit meets me in the haunted ground!- Hark! the world so loud, For him who seeks yon well; lost cities give Of God to mortals, on whose front the beams We wish that our space would permit of a specimen of some of the larger pieces in the volume before us, such as "The Ill-Omened Marriage," "Eva," and "The Lay of the Beacon ;" but these are in the shape of stories, and to take a short passage from any of them would be to offer a brick as a specimen of the architectural beauty of a building. We must there fore give another of the smaller pieces, and it shall be one addressed TO A WITHERED TREE IN JUNE. To win strange winter from the sunimer air, Thou wert not churlish in thy palmier year Tenderly gav'st thou shelter to the deer, Home to the bird! And ever, once, the earliest of the grove, Opening thy blossoms with the haste of love Then did the bees, and all the insect wings, Feaster and darling of the gilded things, Thy liberal course, poor prodigal, is sped! How bird and bee, light parasites, have fled Tell me, sad tree, why are thy branches bare? To win strange winter from the summer air, "Never," replied that forest hermit lone, Yet, wholly, nor for winter nor for storm We are not all forsaken till the worm Creeps to the heart! Ah, nought without-within thee, if decay- Nor boots it if thy heart itself betray, The polish and beauty of these verses must be admitted by every reader. Sir E. L. Bulwer's volume is characterised by the same graces throughout; and though, as has been said, elaboration is too apparent in these pieces, they assuredly do honour to their author as an accomplished man of letters, if they do not stamp him as of the genuine sons of song. IRISH LABOURERS IN PARIS. THE following occurs in a sketchy production entitled whist is a very snug thing, if a man have natural gifts--that happy conformation of the fingers, that ample range of vision that takes in every thing around. But I must not suppose these by any means general, and I legislate for the mass. The turf has also the same difficulties--so has toad-eating---indeed, these three walks might be included among the learned professions. As to railroads, I'm sick of hearing of them for the last three years. Every family in the empire has at least one civil engineer within its precincts; and I'm confident, if their sides were as hard as their skulls, you could make sleepers for the whole Grand Junction by merely decimating the unemployed. Tax collecting does, to be sure, offer some little prospect; but that won't last. Indeed, the very working of the process will limit the advantages of this opening--gradually converting all the payers into paupers. Now, I have meditated long and anxiously on the subject, conversing with others whose opportunities of knowing the world were considerable, but never could I find that ingenuity opened any new path, without its being so instantaneously overstocked that competition alone denied every chance of success. N.B.---I have just read over the preceding to my old friend Mr Synnet, of Mulloglass, whose deep knowledge of the world makes him no mean critic on such a subject. His words are these:-- is too full of us. "The great multiplicity of labourers required for the fortifications of Paris, and the comparative scarcity of French labourers as compared with the soil which they have to cultivate, occasioned directions to be some time since transmitted to the French consul at Dublin to ascertain whether any disposable number of Irish labourers could be induced to proceed to Paris, with a certainty of procuring regular employment for at least a year to come. The result, as may readily be conceived, was that a number of the finest peasantry' jumped at the offer as nimbly as a salmon-trout at a summer fly. Under the special superintendence of the consul, they were shipped in disorder and ragged condition for Havre, felicitating themselves on the gentility of the excursion, and the unlooked-for opportunity of makin' the tower to France all as one as the foremost quollity-and that upon vilvit, and be paid for their pleasurin' into the bargain! Since the memorable period when the immortal hero of the gridiron, 'bein' in distress in regard of the 'aitin', thought a solitary 'Parley voo Fransay?' a passport to all the mysteries of the French mind, nothing more bizarre and provocative of laughter has been witnessed than the landing of these stray sons of St Patrick at Havre, and their journey on foot to Paris. It was my lot to meet with one of them in the centre of the Palais Royal, at the magnificent Galerie d'Orléans. There he stood beneath the splendid glass roof, reflected in a hundred mirrors along the walls, stared at by scores of mustachioed loungers, and giggled at by a dozen magasin-grisettes in their exquisitely soigneuses toilets, looking like houris in a paradise. 'Well, well! what I mean is this: suppose, now, you Paddy had changed in no respect the costume of his have only a couple of thousand pounds to leave your son native hills. The corduroy smalls were patched and re--maybe you have not more than a single thousand--patched, yet broken at the knees. The buttons enjoyed now, my advice is, not to squander your fortune in any a sinecure for convaynience; the long strings which such absurdity as a learned profession, a commission in held the place of knee-buckles fluttered down to the the line, or any other miserable existence, but just look ankle. Like Lord Hamlet, he appeared in the midst of about you, in the west of Ireland, for the fellow that has that emporium of fashion the best house, the best cellar, the best cook, and the best stable. He is sure to want money, and will be delighted to get a loan. Lend it him; make hard terms, of course. For this---as you are never to be paid-the obligation of your forbearance will be the greater. Now, mark me; from the day the deed is signed, you have snug quarters in Galway, not only in your friend's house, but among all his relations--Blakes, Burkes, Bodkins, Kirwans, &c. to no end; you have the run of the whole concern--the best of living, great drink, and hunting in abundance. You must talk of the loan now and then, just to jog their memory; but be always 'too much the gentleman' to ask for your money; and it will even go hard but from sheer popularity they'll make you member for the county. This is the only new thing in the way of a career I know of, and I have great pleasure in throwing out the suggestion for the benefit of younger sons.' With his doublet all unbraced, but a very stunted and straw-bound caubeen, with the - His stockings fouled, "And what may that be?' said I, eagerly. Ungartered, and down gyved to his ankle.' When to this I add that his hardy and sinewy leg was thickly matted with hair of a dusky hue, and that his face was bespread with some ten days' growth of beard of a foxy-brown colour; that his brogues, loosened by the journey, were made fast around the instep by hay ropes; that his coat was of aboriginal blue frieze; and that in his hand he wielded a stoutalpeen,' which had been his firm support for many a rood-I need scarcely wind up his resemblance to the Danish prince by saying that he was the observed of all observers!' When I first espied him in that attitude of upward gazing, which, according to philosophers, distinguishes man from the beast (a distinguishing characteristic which is sometimes very requiAt the principal festivals of the year, for example, at site), I drew closer to him, impelled by an irresistible Easter, their majesties are accustomed to eat in public, curiosity, and was no little astonished at hearing him on which occasions, with respect to the queen, the folejaculate, Holy Vargin, if that disn't bang Banagher.lowing is to be seen and done. The master-cooks set out Eh, then, it's with glass they thatches their houses in Paris!""" A JOB FOR YOUNGER SONS. THE following quiz on the difficulty of finding situations Douglas Jerrold, in his amusing book, 'Cakes and ETIQUETTE OF SPANISH MONARCHS AT TABLE. the table under a canopy, cover it, place the requisite vessels, and spread over all a second cloth. First, there proceed three detachments of the royal body-guard, the sceptre-bearers with their silver and gilded sceptres, the upper intendant of the household and the gentlemen As soon pages, all, except the intendant, bare-headed. as the viands are placed, after the direction of the intendant, the queen is informed, who then appears with her ladies, and takes her seat. A chaplain now comes forward, who blesses the meal, and is commonly presented by the queen with a portion of the best dishes. Company is then admitted to see the queen, but not beyond a stated number, nor of every description. A lady lifts the cover from a dish, a second points it out to the queen, a third lays it before her, except the queen by a slight sign of her head reject it. Commonly, fifteen dishes are served up, besides the entrés and the dessert. The ladies, usually fair and attractive, carry over the shoulder very clean napkins. and conduct themselves very adroitly in their service. If the queen requires any thing to drink, for example, she makes a sign with her head to the first lady, who makes a sign to the lady of the cups; the lady of the cups nods to the chief intendant; the chief intendant to one of the gentlemen pages; and after the sign is made, all make low obeisances to the queen before they pass on the signal. The chief intendant, the page, and an intendant, go to the door; the first receives from the cellar master a large crystal goblet, and holds it with the right hand, and with the left a gilded salver. He returns with the intendant and the page to the lady of the cups, and gives her the goblet and salver. Both advance to the queen with the page, kneel. and offer her to drink. Nothing of the above ceremonial is ever omitted--the presentation of goblet, salver, or glass, the particular mode of taking off and putting on the cover, and of putting every thing back in its place. The proceeding is the same with the dessert and the washing, when the table is removed. The nobles who are As to commerce, our late experiences have chiefly present, but not on service, stand at one side of the room, pointed to the pleasure of trading with nations who and converse with the ladies as they do with their won't pay their debts, like the Yankees. There is, then, lovers. Those on service only make low bows, and oggle little encouragement in that quarter. What, then, re- from a distance. The proceeding is the same when the mains, I scarcely know. The united services are plea-king eats in public. If he does so the same time with the sant, but poor things by way of a provision for life. queen, the attendance and ceremonies are doubled, to the Coach-driving, that admirable refuge for the destitute, great contentment of the spectators.-Raumer's History of prejudice against a man of family sweeping the crosshas been smashed by the rail-roads---and there is a kind of 16th and 17th Centuries. ings. For my own part, I lean to something dignified and respectable---something that does not compromise W. S. ORR, Paternoster Row. the cloth,' and which, without being absolutely a sinecure, never exacts any undue or extraordinary exertion--driving a hearse, for instance; even this, however, is greatly run upon; and the cholera, at its departure, threw very many out of employment. However, the question is, What can a man of small means do with his son? Short LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. publishers or their agents; also, any odd numbers to complete CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,” NUMBER 549. THE LITERARY PROFESSION. THE Literary Profession is a wide term. Some one has remarked that there is a ludicrously great disparity between the undermost and topmost of what are called the learned professions-as, between the poor village apothecary and Sir Henry Halford, between the rural pettifogging attorney and the Lord Chancellor, and the humble hedge-parson and the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope. It will be acknowledged that there is quite as great a space and as ludicrous a contrast between the village rhymer and Wordsworth, or between the scribbler of stringent letters on small police matters in a country newspaper and the editor of one of the principal reviews. The subject placed at the head of this paper must certainly be considered as a very large and very various one, and therefore not easily to be treated to any purpose in a short space. We, nevertheless, are hopeful of making a few general remarks, which will tell on the cases of many individuals, and help, perhaps, to correct some loose and ill-founded notions of the public mind respecting the profession of the pen. One great distinction amongst authors now, as amongst authors a hundred or two hundred years ago, is into men of fortune who write from other motives than the desire of making a subsistence, and men of no fortune with whom that is necessarily one of the leading motives of exertion. The first class are to be regarded as amateurs: they are to be praised for their absolute merits, and allowed credit for selecting so elegant a mode of amusing their leisure hours, but they do not in any way affect the condition of the, rest. Setting them aside, and considering those only who have looked to letters as a means of gaining a subsistence and advancing themselves in the world, we are struck at the outset by this, that many of them have really attained these objects in an eminent degree. The prevalent notion, amongst many literary men and the public alike, is that of Master Shallow as to his class" Beggars all, Sir John;" but this is surely a great mistake. We are not aware of a single one of the conspicuous literary men of England of our time, who has not had reason to thank his pen for what it has done for him. Indeed, the literary has been scarcely behind the legal profession during the last age, in respect of the cases of advancement from one grade of society to another which have been achieved by it. Its young adventurers have not secured any peerages, and not very many baronetages or knighthoods; but its disadvantage in this part of the contrast is from a mere formal cause affecting the legal profession. Great lawyers necessarily come into great political situations, in which these honours are matters of course. Great authors are perhaps as well with their honoured names uneclipsed by titles, and the universal esteem in which they are held when their morals are not unworthy of their fame. We have only to run over some of the principal names, and to reflect on the histories connected with them, in order to be assured that the case is as here represented. Sir Walter Scott entered life as the son of a Scottish solicitor, and promised to be nothing better than a sixth-part employed barrister, till his pen brought him place, fortune, and title: had he not unfortunately involved himself in business affairs-for which his original motive was a dread of the precariousness of literary gains-had he trusted, in short, to literary gains alone, he must have died a man worth a hundred thousand pounds, and made good his wish to found a landed and titled family. Mr Campbell, as is generally known, was an unfriended youth studying at a Scottish university, with perhaps only the life of SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1842. muse. a poor teacher or preacher before him, when his first rising to opulence, or at least comfort, and to personal PRICE 14d. ment, though not to what he aimed at—a bishopric. Addison rose to be Secretary of State; and Prior, from a pot-house boy, became, like Irving, an ambassador. Dryden, with such fecundity of brain as he possessed, must have been well enough off, but for the silly woman who called him husband. We do not know much of rare Ben, but may surmise that sottish habits alone prevented him from being a rich fellow enough. In Shakspeare, elevated from a woolstapler's son to absolute fortune and the style of a country gentleman, we have a striking case of advancement by means of literature, for certainly it was mainly through that cause that he attained wealth, seeing that his qualifications as a player were so poor. We stop with Spenser, who may be thought an unfavourable instance, as he died in distress; but we are not satisfied that this distress was connected in any way with his poetry. Elizabeth employed, patronised, and endowed him, and that grant of land in the south of Ireland must have been no small matter. It was only a transient disturbance of the peace of the country which damaged the poor poet's spirits, and brought him to his grave. Probably, if he had survived the confusion for a little, all might have been well with him. When we consider these things, it is difficult to account for the tendency which is every where shown to whine about the poor rewards of literature, and the doom of indigence and starvation which hangs over the heads of all who give themselves to pen and ink. Can it be owing to the actual known instances of poverty-struck scribblers and starved poets? No doubt, some men of letters have come to a miserable end. The mind lights in a moment on Chatterton, Savage, and Otway. But are these casualties not to be found in all ranks of men and all professions? Are there not many starved apothecaries? Are there not many miserably poor solicitors? Has not the church also its army of martyrs-curates steeped in poverty, and poor probationers who live upon protracted hope all their days? We do not hear of these men, but we always hear of unfortunate authors; and hence perhaps the notion that misery is the almost exclusive associate of genius. It is also to be observed that many of the mishaps and sad ends of literary men are to be traced to their own imprudence-that thing of power, which nothing can overcome or gainsay. When any of the ordinary children of men happen to be destitute of a sense of the value of money, and consequently spend in one day what they gain in six, they usually go to wreck. It were unreasonable to expect that men of genius are to be exempted from the same rule. Goldsmith lived in difficulties, and died three thousand pounds in debt; but Goldsmith was a prosperous and well paid author. He might have been comfortable, if he only could have used his gains with common discretion. There are many literary men in the present day whose case is precisely the same. They realise for years a large income; they live beyond it; they get into debt and difficulty; and then, perhaps, they join in the cry about the inadequate rewards of the press and the woes of literary men. Every person of common feeling would deplore the poverty and difficulties of such men, and be disposed to judge lightly of the cause for the sake of the talent and the suffering; but every one must at the same time be sensible that the evil could have only been avoided by one thing, the exertion of a rational degree of prudence, and that it is unreasonable for literary men to expect a reversal of the laws of nature in their case. We remember a ruined spendthrift who used to talk loudly of the sad state of the money market, and how the country was going all to |