If I had foreseen this! - but 't is a blessing
We don't know what we 're born to!

Trav. But how came it

He chose to be a sailor?

Woman. You shall hear, sir.

As he grew up, he used to watch the birds

In the corn, child's work, you know, and easily done
"T is an idle sort of task: so he built up
A little hut of wicker-work and clay
Under the hedge, to shelter him in rain ;
And then he took, for very idleness,
To making traps to catch the plunderers,-
All sorts of cunning traps that boys can make,—
Propping a stone to fall and shut them in,
Or crush them with its weight, or else a spring
Swung on a bough. He made them cleverly;
And I, poor foolish woman! I was pleased
To see the boy so handy. You may guess
What followed, sir, from this unlucky skill.
He did what he should not, when he was older.
I warned him oft enough; but he was caught
In wiring hares at last, and had his choice,
The prison or the ship.

Trav. The choice at least

Was kindly left him; and for broken laws
This was, methinks, no heavy punishment.

Woman. So I was told, sir, and I tried to think so

But 't was a sad blow to me. I was used
To sleep at nights as sweetly as a child:
Now, if the wind blew rough, it made me start,
And think of my poor boy, tossing about

Upon the roaring seas.

And then I seemed

To feel that it was hard to take him from me

For such a little fault.

But he was wrong,

O, very wrong, a murrain on his traps!
See what they 've brought him to!

Trav. Well! well! take comfort.

He will be taken care of, if he lives;

And should you lose your child, this is a country
Where the brave sailor never leaves a parent

To weep for him in want.

Woman. Sir, I shall want

No succor long. In the common course of years,

1 soon must be at rest; and 't is a comfort,
When grief is hard upon me, to reflect
It only leads me to that rest the sooner.

DIALOGUE VIII.

THE ALDERMAN'S FUNERAL.

Stranger. Whom are they ushering from the world, with all This pageantry and long parade of death?

Townsman. A long parade, indeed, sir; and yet here You see but half; round yonder bend it reaches

A furlong further, carriage behind carriage:

Stran. 'Tis but a mournful sight, and yet the pomp Tempts me to stand a gazer.

Towns. Yonder schoolboy,

Who plays the truant, says the proclamation
Of peace was nothing to the show, and even
The chairing of the members at election
Would not have been a finer sight than this;
Only that red and green are prettier colors
Than all this mourning. There, sir, you behold
One of the red-gowned worthies of the city,
The envy and the boast of our exchange,

Ay, what was worth, last week, a good half million,
Screwed down in yonder hearse.

Stran. Then he was born
Under a lucky planet, who to-day
Puts mourning on for his inheritance.

Towns. When first I heard his death, that very wish
Leapt to my lips; but now the closing scene
Of the comedy hath wakened wiser thoughts;
And I bless God, that when I go to the grave,
There will not be the weight of wealth like his
To sink me down.

Stran. The camel and the needle,
Is that then in your mind?

Is gospel wisdom. I would ride the camel, -
Yea, leap him flying, through the needle's eye,
As easily as such a pampered soul

Could pass the narrow gate.

Stran. Your pardon, sir,

But sure this lack of Christian charity
Looks not like Christian truth.

Towns. Your pardon too, sir,

If, with this text before me, I should feel

In the preaching mood! But for these barren fig-trees,
With all their flourish and their leafiness,

We have been told their destiny and use,
When the axe is laid unto the root, and they
Cumber the earth no longer.

Stran. Was his wealth

Stored fraudfully, the spoil of orphans wronged,
And widows who had none to plead their right?
Towns. All honest, open, honorable gains,
Fair legal interest, bonds and mortgages,
Ships to the east and west.

Stran. Why judge you, then,

So hardly of the dead?

Towns. For what he left

Undone : - for sins, not one of which is mentioned
In the Ten Commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believed no other gods than those of the Creed:
Bowed to no idols, - but his money-bags :

Swore no false oaths, except at the custom-house.
Kept the Sabbath idle: built a monument
To honor his dead father:`did no murder:
Was too old-fashioned for adultery:

Never picked pockets: never bore false-witness:
And never, with that all-commanding wealth,
Coveted his neighbor's house, nor ox, nor ass.
Stran. You knew him, then, it seems 2
Towns. As all men know

The virtues of your

hundred-thousanders: They never hide their lights beneath a bushel. Stran. Nay, nay, uncharitable sir! for often Doth bounty like a streamlet flow unseen,

Freshening and giving life along its course.

Towns. We track the streamlet by the brighter green

And livelier growth it gives: - but as for this

This was a pool that stagnated and stunk;

The rains of heaven engendered nothing in it,
But slime and foul corruption.

Stran. Yet even these

Are reservoirs whence public charity
Still keeps her channels full.

Towns. Now, sir, you touch

Upon the point. This man, of half a million,
Had all these public virtues which you praise,
But the poor man rung never at his door;
And the old beggar, at the public gate,

Who, all the summer long, stands, hat in hand,
He knew how vain it was to lift an eye

To that hard face. Yet he was always found
Among your ten and twenty pound subscribers,
Your benefactors in the newspapers.

His alms were money put to interest
In the other world, - donations to keep open
A running charity-account with Heaven:
Retaining fees against the last assizes,

When, for the trusted talents, strict account
Shall be required from all, and the old arch-lawyer
Plead his own cause as plaintiff.

Stran. I must needs

Believe you, sir;

these are your witnesses,
These mourners here, who from their carriages
Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind
Were to be prayed for now, to lend their eyes
Some decent rheum. The very hireling mute
Bears not a face blanker of all emotion
Than the old servant of the family!

How can this man have lived, that thus his death

Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief?

Towns. Who should lament for him, sir, in whose heart

Love had no place, nor natural charity?

The parlor-spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace; she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Upraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.
How could it be but thus? Arithmetic
Was the sole science he was ever taught.
The multiplication-table was his creed,
His pater-noster, and his decalogue.

When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The open air and sunshine of the fields,

To give his blood its natural spring and play,

He, in a close and dusky counting-house,

Smoke-dried, and seared, and shrivelled up his heart.

So, from the way in which he was trained up,

His feet departed not; he toiled and moiled,

Poor muck-worm! through his three-score years and ten; And when the earth shall now be shovelled on him,

If that which served him for a soul were still

Within its husk, 't would still be dirt to dirt.

Stran. Yet your next newspapers will blazon him For industry and honorable wealth

A bright example.

Towns. Even half a million

Gets him no other praise. But come this way

Some twelve months hence, and you will find his virtues

Trimly set forth in lapidary lines,

Faith, with her torch beside, and little Cupids

Dropping upon his urn their marble tears.

DIALOGUE IX.

LESSONS IN ETIQUETTE.

(Lord Tinsel, and the Earl of Rochdale, a new-made nobleman )

Tinsel. Believe me, you shall profit by my training;

You grow a lord apace. I saw you meet

A bevy of your former friends, who fain

Had shaken hands with you.

You gave them fingers!

You 're now another man. Your house is changed,-
Your table changed, your retinue,

your horse,

Where once you rode a hack, you now back blood ;
Befits it, then, you also change your friends.

(Enter Williams, an attendant.)

Williams. A gentleman would see your lordship.
Tin. Sir, what's that?

Wil. A gentleman would see his lordship.

-

Tin. How know you, sir, his lordship is at home?

*Is he at home because he goes not out?

He's not at home, though there you should see him, sir,
Unless he certifies that he 's at home!

Bring up the name of the gentleman, and then
Your lord will know if he 's at home or not.

(Williams leaves.) Your man was porter to some merchant's door,