in the market, might save them all their draining outlay, and remunerate them much better on the whole. Mr Phillips calculated that good and well-managed willows would give, in ordinary circumstances, an annuai profit of above L.18 an acre. Others state the profit lower, or about L.10 or L.12 per acre. Any of these sums, considering the nature of the soil occupied, might well induce people to try the culture of osiers. Mr Phillips conceives the best time for planting to be autumn, and the best time for cutting to be also autumn, though it is common to plant in the spring. Shoots only are cut, and the stock left. From 6000 to 12,000 sets are usually planted on an acre of ground. It has just been mentioned that humidity is necessary for willows. They grow even in standing water, but are too soft in such situations, and not well fitted for basket-work. Upon the whole, it might be worth while for agricultural people to look into this matter, and see if they could not do both themselves and their country good by giving the home market a home supply of an article continually in demand, and for which foreign countries have to be resorted to at present. MEMORY. IN a paper read a short time ago by Sir Henry Marsh, Bart., at a meeting of physicians, on the subject of memory, and which afterwards appeared in a newspaper, we find the following intelligent observations, tending to show that memory, like every thing else, is susceptible of cultivation, and must always less or more depend on the proper exercise of the faculties of the mind : "Wherever there are traces of mental manifestation, there the attribute of memory is to be found-variously distributed, but always bearing invariable proportion to the amount and extent of intellectual development. As the instincts of the animal become more numerous, so the reach of memory increases; and if, in our observations of facts, beginning with the lowest, we ascend in the scale of animated nature, we shall discover a gradual augmentation of mind and memory till we arrive at man, who, in the possession of both, stands alone and pre-eminent above every other inhabitant of the earth. It is on the score of those superior faculties, moral and intellectual, by which man is distinguished, that he, amongst animals, is designated the image of his Maker; but how valueless had all these endowments been, had not that of memory been superadded! Of all the mental powers, none arrests so forcibly the attention of all classes of persons as this of which we treat. Its utility in every sphere and condition of life is so palpable, that it cannot pass unobserved. It is also so remarkably affected by disease, so strikingly exhibited in infancy and childhood, so altered in character by old age, and displayed in such strong features, though limited in extent, in the warring and predatory life of savage and uncivilised man, and so largely bestowed in some one distinct form upon parti cular individuals, that it is, above all other mental manifestations, that which never fails to obtrude itself upon the notice of even the unobservant and thoughtless. The events and occurrences of childhood are not im printed permanently on the mind. In all instances in which I have made inquiry, I cannot trace permanent impressions farther back than to about two years and a half old. A lady told me lately, that she left India when only three years old-that she distinctly recollected having been carried in a palanquin, and having embarked on board what then appeared to her an enormous vessel, in which she sailed to Europe; all else had escaped from her memory. The first event of my own life which I can recollect is a fight with a cock. From that period onwards to the age of eight years, the facts and events which I am able to recall are few. In precocious children it may be different; but of these so many die prematurely, that we cannot gather many facts. In old age, too, memory gradually fails. We may say, then, that the period of memory is the period of the consciousness of personal identity. In point of fact, we live only as long as we can recall past impressions; all else in life, both in infancy and extreme senility, and the time spent in sleep, is a blank. Thus the period of human life is contracted within a smaller span than the number of years usually reckoned upon. The progress of memory from infancy to mature years in an individual of an energetic, active, and cultivated mind, may not inaptly be compared with some great river at its source a streamlet, enlarging by degrees as it advances, collecting materials for expansion from a thousand springs, spreading wider and wider as it rolls onwards, and becoming ultimately one mighty and majestic mass of waters-deep, broad, and beautiful--till at length it is mingled with and lost in the ocean. Such is the progress of memory in the human mind. Memory cannot be without a previous impression. An impression cannot be made upon the mind without attention. Attention presents itself to our view under two very distinct forms; one, instinctive and necessary, which takes place whether we will or not; the other constrained, or the result of mental effort. So likewise memory, or the recalling of past impressions, is either necessary and spontaneous, or it is the result of a mental effort. The first is termed simple memory; the second, recollection. The more vigorous and active each mental faculty, the more excited is the attention to congenial objects, the more forcible the impression made, and consequently the more tenacious and permanent the memory of such impressions. The order of the sequence then is-active faculties, strong impressions, vigorous memory. I have often thought that, if in children the various powers of memory were closely observed, an index of the mental faculties would thence be derived, most valuable in the conduct of education. Believing, as I do, that many intellectual faculties have each its own proper memory, it follows, as a necessary consequence, that in proportion to the strength and activity of each faculty is the vigour, readiness, and retentiveness of the memory attached to it. Hence, by carefully studying the memory, and ascertaining by well-conducted experiment where it is vigorous and retentive, and where comparatively defective, we should be materially assisted in arriving at a knowledge of the real condition of the mental faculties of the individual whom we undertake to educate. In this our sublunary state of existence, mind and matter are so inseparably united, that the one cannot manifest its functions without the other. The brain is the material instrument of the mind. The human brain, in number and depth of convolutions, in the proportionate quantity of grey or cineritious matter, in size, compared with the other portions of the nervous system, in development of parts posteriorly, superiorly, and anteriorly, exceeds that of all other animals. If the brain be deranged in function, or diseased in structure, the memorial facul ties suffer. The brain sympathises with remote parts, and with the digestive organs in particular; we all know and feel to what an extent our reasoning powers and memory are influenced by the state of the stomach. deavoured to repeat at night words or propositions which Often in my boyhood, and even subsequently, I have enI was anxious to imprint on the memory, and repeat correctly. At night I could perform my task but very imperfectly; on awaking in the morning, and repeating the effort, not one word was forgotten. Sympathy with remote parts-high mental excitements and emotions, such as grief, intense pleasure, intense application various poisonous substances, such as opium, alcohol, disease, injury-all these, by disturbing the functions of the brain, derange variously, and to a greater or less extent, the mental manifestations." We add the single observation, that young persons who feel deficient in memory, may rest assured that the defect is caused less by inferior mental capacity, than want of application at right times and on right objects. The avoidance of trifling pursuits and undue gratifications of the senses, at the same time directing the mind to subjects of a useful and ennobling tendency, will strengthen the reflective faculties, and that is the cultivation of the memory. EXTREME OLD AGE. We pray in the Litany to be delivered from sudden death. Any death is to be deprecated which should find us unprepared; but, as a temporal calamity, with more reason might we pray to be spared from the misery of an infirm old age. It was once my fortune to see a frightful instance of extreme longevity-a woman who was nearly in her hundredth year. Her sight was greatly decayed, though not lost; it was very difficult to make her hear, and not easy then to make her understand what was said, though, when her torpid intellect was awakened, she was legally of sane mind." She was unable to walk, or to assist herself in any way. Her neck hung in such wrinkles, that it might almost be likened to a turkey's; and the skin of her face and of her arms was cleft like the bark of an oak, as rough, and almost of as dark a colour. In this condition, without any apparent suffering, she passed her time in a state between sleeping and waking, fortunate that she could thus beguile the wearisomeness of such an existence. Instances of this kind are much rarer in Europe than in tropical climates. Negresses in the West Indies sometimes attain an age which is seldom ascertained, because it is far beyond living memory. They outlive all voluntary power, and their descendants of the third or fourth generation carry them out of their cabins into the open air, and lay them, like logs, as the season may require, in the sunshine or in the shade. Methinks, if Mecenas had seen such an object, he would have composed a palinode to those verses in which he has perpetuated his most pitiable love for life. A woman in New Hampshire, North America, had reached the miserable age of 102, when, one day, as some people were visiting her, the bell tolled for a funeral ; she burst into tears, and said, "Oh, when will the bell I am afraid that I shall never die!" This reminds me that I have either read or heard an affecting story of a poor old woman in England-very old, and very poorwho retained her senses long after the body had become a weary burden; she, too, when she heard the bell toll for a funeral, used to weep, and say she was afraid God had forgotten her! These are extreme cases, as rare as they are mournful. Life, indeed, is long enough for what we have to suffer, as well as what we have to learn; but it was wisely said by an old Scottish minister (I wish I knew his name, for this saying ought to have immortalised it), “ Time is short; and if your cross is heavy, you have not far to carry it."-The Doctor. toll for me! It seems as if it never would toll for me! [The writer of the above omits one of the chief reasons for not wishing to live to an extreme old age-the total deprivation of all friends and relatives whom we knew in youth or later years. The gradual loss of these, as we become older, is a kind provision for weaning us from a love of an undue length of life.] EFFECTS OF FOOD ON THE FORM AND CHARACTER OF QUADRUPEDS. Food influences all the external characters of quadrupeds. Without adverting to the different appearance of an ill-fed beast and one which has an abundant supply, we may remark, that the form of the young animal that suffers a deprivation either in the quantity or quality of its food, never becomes perfectly developed either in its bulk or proportions. The integuments of such a one never present the gloss of health, neither is the constitution at large often free from disease; internal congestions take place, and the mesenteric glands frequently become schirrous. On the contrary, in proportion as the supply within prudent limits is liberal, so is the growth extended, and the form reaches to the standard of the parent. It often also exceeds the parent stock, from the excess of nutritive stimulus applied; and thus horses, oxen, and sheep, brought up in low marshy lands, where the herbage is luxuriant, attain a monstrous size. Horses, in particular, when bred and pastured in the rich flat lands of Lincolnshire, become expanded in bulk, and it is from such sources that our carriage and heavy troop To what a degree of monstrosity horses are supplied. may not our bacon hogs be fed; and our prize-oxen exhibit the extraordinary powers of food, when forced on an animal, by increasing the supply and restraining the expenditure. It is from our artificial mode of feeding cattle that our markets are now furnished with veal all the year round, and lamb is so common some months before it appeared at the tables of our forefathers.---Encyclopædia of Rural Sports. ENGLISH AND IRISH BEGGARS. You may journey many a mile in England, and the people you will meet are in their manner and deportment so much alike, that they appear, if not members of one family, to have been all educated in the same school. It is otherwise in Ireland; everywhere there is some national characteristic, the ramifications of which are various and numerous. The English pauper is at once bowed down by misery, and murmurs and complains under its endurance from first to last. The Irish beggar wrestles with distress; he can exist upon so little food as to seem almost able to live without it; but he cannot do without his jest; there are moments when the heart beats lightly even in his starving bosom. The poverty of the English, except at stated times, is sullen; the poverty of the Irish is garrulous: the Englishman takes relief as a right; the Irishman accepts it as a boon. You may aid half a dozen English paupers without receiving thanks; you cannot relieve an Irish beggar without being paid in blessings.— Hall's Ireland. DEACONS OF THE OLD SCHOOL. In the days of Bailie Nicol Jarvie's father, the office of deacon [chairman of a corporation of tradesmen] was esteemed no mean distinction. Two worthy incumbents, who fretted their little hour upon a stage not far from the banks of the Ayr, happened to be invested with the above-named dignity on the same day The more youthful of the two flew home to tell his young wife what an important prop of the civic edifice he had been allowed to become; and searching the "but and ben" in vain, ran out to the byre, where, meeting the cow, he could no longer contain his joy, but, in the fullness of his heart, clasped her round the neck, and it is even said, kissed her, exclaiming, "Oh, crummie, crummie, ye're nae langer a common cow-ye're the deacon's cow!" The elder civic dignitary was a sedate pious person, and felt rather "blate" in showing to his wife that he was uplifted above this world's honours. As he thought, however, it was too good a piece of news to allow her to remain any time ignorant of, he lifted the latch of his own door, and stretching his head inwards," Nelly!" said he, in a voice that made Nelly all ears and eyes, "gif ony body comes spierin' for the deacon, I'm just owre the gate at John Tamson's !"-Ayr Advertiser. WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN? By the appellation of a gentleman, it is not meant to draw a line that would be invidious between high and low, rank and subordination, riches and poverty. The distinction is in the mind. Whoever is open, loyal, and true-whoever is of humane and affable demeanour-whoever is honourable in himself, and in his judgment of others, and requires no law but his word to make him fulfil an engagement, such a man is a gentleman, and such a man may be found among the tillers of the earth. High birth and distinction, however, for the most part, ensure the high sentiment which is denied to poverty and lower professions. It is hence, and hence only, that the great claim their superiority; and hence what has been so beautifully said of honour, the law of kings, is no more than true. It aids and strengthens virtue where it meets her, and imitates her actions where she is not.-Book of Thought. MAKING A MYSTERY OF NOTHING. There are minds so habituated to intrigue and mystery in themselves, and so prone to expect it from others, that they will never accept of a plain reason for a plain fact, if it be possible to devise causes for it that are obscure, farfetched, and usually not worth the carriage. Like the miser of Berkshire, who would ruin a good horse to escape a turnpike, so these gentlemen ride their high-bred theories to death, in order to come at truth, through byepaths, lanes, and alleys; while she herself is jogging quietly along upon the high and beaten road of common sense. The consequence is, that those who take this mode of arriving at truth, are sometimes before her, and sometimes behind her, but very seldom with her. Thus, the great statesman who relates the conspiracy against Doria, pauses to deliberate upon, and minutely to scrutinise into divers and sundry errors committed, and opportunities neglected, whereby he would wish to account for the total failure of that spirited enterprise. But the plain fact was, that the scheme had been so well planned and digested, that it was victorious in every point of its operation, both on the sea and on the shore, in the harbour of Genoa no less than in the city, until that most unlucky accident befell the Count de Fiesque, who was the very life and soul of the conspiracy. In stepping from one galley to another, the plank on which he stood upset, and he fell into the sea. His armour happened to be very heavy, the night to be very dark, the water to be very deep, and the bottom to be very muddy. And it is another plain fact, that water, in all such cases, happens to make no distinction whatever between a conqueror and a cat. Lacon. LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W. S. ORR, Paternoster Row. Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. publishers or their agents; also, any odd numbers to complete Complete sets of the Journal are always to be had from the sets. Persons requiring their volumes bound along with titlepages and contents, have only to give them into the hands of any bookseller, with orders to that effect. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,” "CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c. NUMBER 538. THOUGHTS ON NATIONS AND SOME philosophers have such an opinion of the helplessness of the race to which they belong, as to be quite at a loss to understand how civilisation should have commenced. They see vast nations of barbarians still overspreading the earth, amongst whom, after thousands of years, no tendency to improvement can be detected; and, not perceiving any natural differences in men, they wonder how the history of other nations, originally as barbarous, should have been so different. Their error lies, first, in not seeing differences in men. There are great organic differences both in nations and in individuals, accompanied by corresponding differences of mental character. It may be readily owned that, as far as we can see, no power of originating a spontaneous civilisation exists in the Papuans and the Troglodytes; these, apparently, must wait for a reflected light from other quarters. But the Hellenes and the Teutones, and some other races, have been constituted very differently. The error of the philosophers lies, secondly, in their not understanding that the mental faculties have an inherent activity, and that, in some special cases of high endowment, this activity is inventive and suggestive, thus striking out new lights from the mass of surrounding darkness. A Pascal, at fifteen, made out for himself the chief conclusions of geometry. A woolcomber's son, springing up amongst the commonalty of Warwickshire, wrote more exquisite things, untaught, than any educated man of his own or almost any other age. Why should it be so difficult to comprehend how savage man first learned to kindle a fire or cook his food? Truly, the ideas of philosophers respecting their race are any thing but complimentary. We say, on the contrary, that, just as we see geniuses rise every day to extend the bounds of knowledge, and singularly worthy men to advance and exemplify moral excellence, so, in a barbarian community of the superior kind, would there be better men rising every now and then, to produce some improvement in both respects. The law which produces such men must have operated from the beginning: as there were many heroes before Agamemnon, so there must have been many Anaxagorases, Aristotles, and Platoes, long before the philosophers of these names existed-men capable of conceiving and showing the way to something superior to barbarism. These were the fathers of civilisation. The mythologies of most nations seem to be an obscure record of such men, Veneration having deified them, while as yet Intellect had not formed a written language in which to take down a correct account of their deservings. It is scarcely necessary to remark, that, upon this theory, the civilisation and arts of Central America are to be accounted for without puzzling ourselves about the source of American population. A better kind of race seems to have arisen in that part of the American continent: there is no reason why that race should not have invented architectural designs and practised sculpture out of their own heads, as well as the Egyptians, from whom it is vainly attempted to be shown that they must have borrowed their ideas. The invention of these, and a thousand other things, was but a natural phenomenon, only requiring the conditions of intellect and certain external circumstances to bring it to pass. It might take place in any of those physically favoured regions of the earth, where alone young nations are sufficiently at ease on the score of food and shelter to allow of their cultivating the arts of civilisation. And it is important to SATURDAY, MAY 21, 1842. remark, that the Toltecan civilisation might have an independent beginning, whether the people came originally from the eastern continent or not. PRICE 14d. over that space, as it probably would, if unrestrained, we should in a few hundred years find a new and peculiar nation arisen. It is only for want of space that phenomena on the same scale as the creation of the Greeks or the Goths do not now take place. Yet, even as the world now is, we see that a certain order of Englishmen, emigrating in company to form a New England, become the progenitors of a nation which, two hundred years from its origin, shows strong traces of the peculiar Anglicism which marked the so-called pilgrim fathers. Supposing that the first Puritan emigrants had been alone, and that their descendants had received no infusion of other races, can we doubt, from what we see, that the people of New England would have been, still more expressly than they are, a representation of a peculiar section of English society of the time of Charles the First ! and tendency to good social institutions, has many a parallel in the rise of judicious and industrious individuals out of families where little of that kind of Assuming one origin for the whole race, it is much character is seen to prevail generally. Take any wellless difficult than might be supposed to show how the marked man at this day, and plant him in the midst variations have since arisen. That external physical of an ample unoccupied space, with married children circumstances will do much to produce variation-around him, and, unquestionably, if his family spread to blacken or whiten the skin, for instance-can scarcely be doubted, when we see in the Hindoos alone every shade of colour, the shades being the effect of the comparative elevation of territory and comparative height of temperature. But the grand cause of variation appears to reside in a natural law for the production of varieties. This law is less obvious than it otherwise might be, in consequence of the apparently opposite one that the general character of parents is transmitted to offspring. It is nevertheless a prominent and most important feature of nature's economy, having apparently for its object a perpetual freshening and rejuvenescence of the stock of her many animated tribes. It is under favour of this law that an unusually able man-a Franklin or a Burns, for instance occasionally arises from a race of simple and unthinking rustics. From such a man we may often see the like in succession, but he is himself the head and commencement of his own style of character. It is also seen that, in the domesticated tribes of animals, and in cultivated shrubs, new varieties are constantly arising. A sheep is born with short legs; it is bred from; and in time we see an English county full of short-legged sheep, the peculiarity being thought useful as disabling the animal for leaping fences. A violet or tulip with particular colours and form of leaves arises: it is selected for propagation on account of its beauty, and in a few years we see it spread every where over the country. It is not at all unlikely that some of the chief varieties of mankind-as the Mongolians (amongst whom are the Chinese), or the Caucasians (amongst whom are nearly the whole of the European nations)-have descended from one person, a cadet of another stock who happened to have received from nature qualities considerably different from those of his parents. The greatness of the number marked in one way can be no objection, when we remember that the whole Hebrew nation have a family likeness, known, from Egyptian monuments, to have been the same in the time of Moses, and which may therefore be presumed to be derived from Abraham or one of his immediate descendants. We have only to suppose one of these heads of varieties quitting the native territory with his family, and settling in some neighbouring vacant one, which his children in time peopled. And we can readily suppose that such a person would be just the most likely to pine for free space, and endeavour to obtain it. Subordinate varieties would arise from similar emigrations. In this variety-producing power of nature, evidently lies the chief cause of the numberless peculiarities which mark and distinguish the nations of the earth. The distinguishing features of nations are to be traced quite as clearly in their mental character as in external form and colour. One is addicted to mystic learning; another to the elegant arts; a third runs wild in superstitious error. Even in savage nations, when we look narrowly into them, there are wellmarked peculiarities of character. The variety-producing law of course includes the production of such characteristics. And thus we may contemplate the origin of the artistic mind of the Greeks as a phenomenon precisely analogous to the production of a Lawrence in an inn on the Bath road, or a Wilkie in the manse of a rural Scottish parson. The Gothic mind, with its sober thoughtfulness, perseverance, Variety-production-that law by which nations of superior have sprung from nations of inferior endowment-may be considered as the highest that affects the natural history of our species. It produces great leaps in improvement, but these may be at long intervals, and their frequency must be much diminished as the earth becomes filled up with nations. There are other laws of less instant energy, but which work as remarkable effects in time. These work improvement by bringing superior to work upon inferior mental organisation, and by intermarriage of races. There is an inherent tendency in human nature to improve; but, like some other mental characteristics, it is in a great measure confined to a few nations, and to a limited class of even these. If any one wonders why it has been hitherto shown almost exclusively in the Gothic races, let him also wonder why the fine arts can scarcely be said to have ever risen spontaneously any where but on the shores of the Mediterranean. Apparently, the very highest degree of the endowment of any faculty is that which leads the possessor to its unprompted exercise, as when a boy attempts to draw, and draws well, who never saw or heard of limning. Of this nature is the case of those who have an inherent tendency to civilisation. But there are many who would never think on their own part of drawing, who, nevertheless, if tempted to take lessons, and induced to give attention, would become tolerable draughtsmen. So also are there many nations which, though not spontaneously disposed to civilisation, are susceptible of being civilised when the proper agency is brought to bear upon them. And it is very interesting to observe from history what a tendency the higher races have always shown to be the cultivators or educators of the inferior. It would almost appear as if there were providential arrangements in human nature to bring about this object. Higher races are generally restless, ambitious, and fruitful. Obeying the impulse of their nature to conquest, or simply breaking over their bounds in search of new fields of settlement, they tend to go in upon other nations, whom they perhaps injure and oppress for a time, but generally, in the long run, improve. The colonies of the Greeks, the conquests of the Romans, the overflow of the northern nations upon the Roman empire, the extension of the British race and power over Northern America, India, and many other parts of the earth, are instances of this disposition of superiorly endowed nations, while all the secondary races remain for ages fused in three centuries, for they were not very di- "Well, there is no occasion to be sharp about it. in defined bounds, and generally much isolated. The It thus appears that man, in certain favourable circumstances, may arrive at what seems to be a comparatively advanced stage. The improvability, so to call it, is not strictly definite; yet we must conclude, from all analogy, that it has bounds, and that the present being must ever remain upon the whole the irre-. gular impulsive creature which he has been. It has been fully ascertained that, even amongst the lower animals, an effect produced by external agency in the mental character of one generation, tends to reappear in the next as an inherent condition. This is conspicuously the case in those horses and dogs which have fallen particularly under human care. The act of the pointer, a result of training in past generations, is natural to a puppy of the tribe which never saw game. The amble of the American horse, the peculiar leap of the Irish, the docility to speech and not to the bridle shown by the hardy courser of Norway-all reappear in foals of the respective tribes which have been brought up in England. Such facts can only be accounted for by supposing that the training or education works a certain organic change in the animal, for how otherwise could it be transmitted? Either the former material of the nervous system must be in some way modified, or new material must be added; and this new condition, whatever it is, becomes represented in the new generation. A change thus once set a-going must increase, for every new generation will start with not only the inherent character of the preceding, but all the benefit which that has derived from external agency. Such is the process which we recognise as the taming, as well as that which we call the training, of animals. Tameness in an animal originally wild, as, for instance, the common cow, may be regarded as simply the result of an exposure of the race during many generations to influences which evoked the gentler and stilled the fiercer feelings of the animal's nature. The tissues on which the fiercer feelings depended would, in obedience to the universal organic law, decline, while those on which the milder feelings depended would gain in volume and in strength. Hence, the milk-cow of our dairies must be organic-EMILY DAWSON had been nearly four months in her ally a considerably different creature from her cousin who yet roams wild in Chillingham Park or amidst the woods of Cadzow. As far as the mental constitution of the human race depends on the nervous system, the process of civilisation is precisely an analogous, though generally a more strongly developed, phenomenon. In the early stages of a society, the muscular and the more animal parts of the mental system are predominant, as we see in savages at this day. Intellectual and moral influences being brought into operation, those parts of the system are in some small degree less exercised, and consequently lose in volume and energy. The formative nutrition, diverted therefrom, goes to the intellectual and moral tissues, which it in some small degree increases. The next generation starts with this improvement, and experiences during its existence further benefit from the continued external agency. Thus, in the course of a number of generations, a change sufficiently considerable to be entitled to the term civilisation is effected. It is hardly necessary to remark, that this law is not definite in its operation, and that there is only a tendency upon the whole to such improvement in the sum of instances. We are more called upon to observe, that civilisations thus originating and going on are liable to be absorbed, overpowered, and deranged by various causes. A strong civilisation, coming in upon a weak, absorbs it. An isolated civilisation may be swamped by the irresistible brute force of a surrounding barbarism. Other external agencies, as, for instance, false maxims in the superior race, may derange the process. On all hands, through out history, we see civilisations undergoing the most strangely varied fates. It is also very clear that some are wanting in certain of the elements that go to compose a great nation. There may be fineness of intellect without strength; delicacy without moral energy ; industry without the power of self-defence. In all of these cases, there will be a tendency to break down and relapse into an inferior condition. Much must depend on whether the civilisation is produced by elements within the race itself, as the Germanic seems to have been the highest and best we have yet known --and, in the case of a foreign element being the cause, what proportion the superior bears to the inferior race, and how far their various native qualities tend in union or fusion to form a good type; also how far they naturally tend to fusion. It was natural for the Normans and Saxons of the British isle to become * See the paper "Educability of Animals," Journal, No. 533. We conclude these speculations with an expression of sincere regret that, being in some measure new and unexpected, our bounds do not allow us to support them by so large an amount of evidence as might be considered necessary. Researches into history by the light of science is a thing of yesterday, and as yet little has been done for it. But we entertain no doubt that physiology alone could throw more light upon the origin and progress of nations, within the bounds of one small volume, than could be done by a whole library of political history, or the united labours of a score of archaiological societies. THE GOVERNESS. BY MRS S. C. HALL. situation; during that time Mr Byfield came and "Why does Mr Byfield turn away from you, Miss 66 I hope not, Elizabeth," said the governess. "Well, my dear, go on," said Miss Dawson, in her "I would rather not say what I intended, for fear you would not like it," answered the girl; "and yet I should wish to say it." "Then do, Caroline." "Oh, thank you, dear mamma!" exclaimed both the children, in the same delighted tone of voice, and rejoiced to see her temper changed. "Thank you, that will be a treat; and, mamma," added Caroline," may Miss Dawson come also?" Miss Dawson has had her drive this week already,” said Mrs Hylier, walking out of the room with renewed ill temper. "Let Elizabeth go, and I will stay with you," whispered the affectionate though spoiled child to Miss Dawson. Ah, you say that to make us go !" said Elizabeth. "For shame, Lizzy! you know we never found Miss Dawson out in the very least little white fib in the world," observed Caroline. "But that would not be a fib, would it, sister?-because mamma often says those kind of things to papa, to get him to do what she wants." You are too young, my dear Lizzy, to be able to judge of any one's motives," said Miss Dawson; "and in this instance must be mistaken. So now, dears, go, and do not keep mamma waiting." Some persons, who had seen Miss Dawson by chance at Mrs Hylier's, although she was "only a governess," had been heard to observe that she was very pretty. Had she not been a governess, she could not have been looked at without being admired-not for actual beauty, but for the sweet gentleness of her countenance, the purity of her complexion, the open, truthful outlooking of her fine eyes, and the ease and grace of her movements. The deep mourning, which had excited Mrs Hylier's displeasure, made her an object of touching interest to all who had any feeling; it harmonised with the sad expression of her face; and two or three ladies, in open defiance of Mrs Hylier's well-known jealousy of disposition, had said, "how glad they would be if Miss Dawson would visit their young people"-invitations which she thankfully declined. When she was left alone that luxury which her class so seldom enjoy-she opened her desk, and, after glancing over some letters, fixed her eyes upon a miniature which she had taken from a secret drawer. She looked at it long and steadily, until her eyes overflowed, and tear after tear, large round drops, coursed each other down her anguished face. She then wiped the salt moisture from its surface, looked again at the picture, pressed it convulsively within her clasped palms, and laying her head upon them, sobbed as if her heart was breaking. While sobbing, she slid from her seat upon her knees; her emotion gradually subsided. She prayed, rose, kissed the cherished picture, and murmuring, as she closed the case, "Mother my mother!" replaced it in her desk. Strange as may seem, after this agitation she became at once which, cherished child as she had been for so many composed-it had done her good-the petty insults years, she felt it hard to endure, had passed away with the deluge of tears that welled up from her young heart. She wondered how they could have grieved her-how she could have felt them-when the superior bitterness of her mother's loss came again upon her. Small sorrows place us below the world-a great sorintervals, with a quieter and firmer mind than she row above it; and she continued a letter, written at had felt for some days. The letter was to a young lady, the sister of the curate who had attended her ask me if I am happy: I ought to be happier than I mother's deathbed: a portion of it ran thus:-" You am. My two pupils are kind, affectionate girls; and, though somewhat idle, and very ignorant, if I am permitted to manage them as I desire, I have no doubt it I they will improve-not rapidly, but certainly. never could manage a child until I obtained its affec"I meant, too sad to be naughty, or like other girls." tions-and the affections of the young are generally "I was not always sad, my dear; though, I perceive, ductile; but Mrs Hylier is weak enough to be jealous I must not let you see that I am so, even at times. If of the little love the children bear me. She does not you say your lessons as well, and are as attentive as understand that it is the only means I have of workyou have been this morning, I shall be much happier." ing out her, or what ought to be her, intention; but Caroline Hylier flung her arms round Miss Dawson's neck, and kissed her, declaring that since such was the the truth is, that all she really desires them to know case, she would certainly do her best to improve; and are a few showy accomplishments. She came home in while she was speaking, Mrs Hylier entered the school-who repeated some long Italian poem-of which she an ecstacy of delight the other evening with a girl room-a cloud of the deepest displeasure overshadowed could not even remember the name, much less underher pretty face. "Oh, mamma!" exclaimed Elizabeth, "Miss Daw-stand the meaning-in a room crowded with comson says that if we are good, she will be so much hap- sion, and her action was so graceful. With the same pany. The girl,' she said, 'had so much self-possespier." breath she declaimed against a woman's appearing on the stage. I ventured to observe, that the child who, at twelve years of age, would have sufficient confidence to repeat and act a poem in a crowded drawing-room, would be very likely to desire to exhicould not perceive the analogy, and thought, indeed bit before a larger audience as she grew older; but she said, I was impertinent for making it. Is it not a mother who would act in concert with me? I subcause of great regret that I have never yet found a mit quietly to be treated with indifference by the lady and gentleman, who, when I am in the room, speak and act exactly as if they were alone, except when "I should have thought," observed the jealous quence; "I do wish, Miss Dawson, you would not answer me in that peculiarly sad voice; and that everlasting mourning, you wear it makes me heart-broken to look at it." "It nearly broke mine," said the poor girl, " to put it on." *See" Changes Produced in the Nervous System by Civilisation." By Robert Verity, M.D. London: Highley. 1839. revive; for I have a better lot than many. There is a "Ah! there you are!" exclaimed the light breezy voice "As you "As the young ladies were with you, I thought I might accompany Ma'amselle," she answered. tlemen," continued the lady, apparently unconscious that Miss Dawson had replied. "I do not approve of my governess walking with gen "Vat gentlemans?" exclaimed Miss Mercier, with an air of pretty astonishment. "You know best, miss; but as you are not in my employment, I have nothing to say to you; I can only desire my governess not to do it again," persisted Mrs Hylier. "And I should like to know who the gentlemen were. 66 "And so should I, indeed, ma'am," said Miss Dawson, most earnestly, though it would be to little purposefor who would revenge an insult offered to me?" "Oh! you should tell your patron saint, Mr Byfield," returned the lady, with an insulting laugh and a sneer, and slapped the door in the face of the two girls. as she entered the breakfast-room with Mrs Gresham, While Colette muttered to herself in French, Miss Dawson turned slowly round to go up stairs, and saw the housemaid draw back her head from over the bannisters, while the footman did not think it necessary to conceal that he had heard the "blowing up," as he elegantly termed it, which his mistress gave "our governess." Mrs Hylier threw herself into a chair, and, looking at Mrs Gresham, exclaimed, "Well, and what do you mean to do ?" "Why, nothing, sister; surely the poor girls cannot help it if impertinent men will follow them home." "I know very well that French girl you have is good for nothing, and you have suffered her to encroach too much." Miss Dawson begged to be excused; she would rather urged a thousand reasons, but without effect. stay at home; she had much to do; was not well; and please, my dear," said the now pouting French girl; "but it is unkind of you. Madame Gresham vill not let me go vith any other lady, and I nevere get a valk. Dat cher "I really cannot tell, sister," said the tranquil Mrs littel boy is such a plague ven ve go out---and he is avay. Gresham; "I had an excellent character with her, and Now, do come; it is cruel of you for fancy to prevent me "though Mrs Ryal did say her accent is bad, I don't think Emily did not continue to refuse, for she could not bear she is a good judge; and one may go on changing for to be unkind; and drawing a thick crape veil over her ever, just as she does, since that underbred daily goverface, she prepared to accompany the volatile but kindness of hers ran off with her own father's shopman. She those two girls; the staid, quiet, graceful deportment of hearted Frenchwoman. They were a national contrast has tried half-a-dozen; but, as Mr Gresham says, she Emily Dawson, and the vivid, tripping, carefully careless demarche of Colette Mercier-the deep mourning of the now, gives her servants better wages than her teachers, and what can she expect:" Again the ladies were interrupted by the entrance of Mrs Ryal, just as they had been when about to advertise. "I felt it my duty, Mrs Hylier," she commenced, after the usual nothings of a morning visit had been exchanged "I felt it a positive duty to tell you that all the people of Kensington are talking about you." "I am glad they are so well employed," retorted Mrs Hylier, with a provoking smile. English girl, and the tulip-like appearance of the French, secrets are to be talked, when they begin to whisper, and then, of course, I leave the apartment. I find, when with my pupils, a deep, and happily an absorbing interest, in their improvement; but, when that excitement is over, I droop again; for I am considered an intruder when lessons are over, and an automaton while they are in progress. Shall I ever again hear the voice of encouragement, which makes the heart bound to its duties-shall I ever be praised any more? Oh, do not think, because I say this, that I yearn after flattery; I do not; but if the parent knew how kind considerate words increase the desire to bring the children forward-a smile-a gentle word-a simple you have done well,' would make the labour, the weary labour, of thankless teaching a pleasure. Mrs Hylier seldom finds fault; but she never utters a sound of commendation. And yet, why do I complain? You know that, for three years before my mother was taken from me, I toiled through the streets of that distant town, in the grey mists of the winter's mornings, as well as in the light of the summer's sun, teaching music here and drawing there all the accomplishments in one place, and the sciences' in another; and as I had no protector-a creature to be insulted by those whose manly garb was certainly no index to a manly mind-I was dismissed from one house because the lady thought me too pretty to come in the way of her son; from another, because I did not wear caps, and looked too young without them; from another, because I would not lunch with the lady's maid; and yet I bore all this, and more, as you know, cheerfully, because from six in the evening until eight the next morning, I had the sheltering bosom of my mother. The abilities she had fostered were the means of supporting her at the last. In those two small cottage rooms I had a home; there was her smile, her voice, her counsel, and her prayer. I was some one's first object. She loved me; the tenderness of her whole life was poured into my heart, under every trial which a fatherless girl must endure, who has to grope her way through the world's darkness. Oh, my mother! my mother!-but tears will blot the page when I write of her! When I think of her, I feel suffocated; and I have no right to repine; only thus much-even a little kindness would make me work so cheerfully. With the education, and tastes, and feelings of a gentlewoman, it is hard to be treated as if I had neither education, nor taste, nor feeling. The lady's maid is a confidant; the housekeeper a mistress; the housemaid has half the day to herself; the governess- -But this is idle; my mother would reprove me for it; she would tell me to do my duty in that state of life to which it has pleased God to call me, and leave the rest to Him. You know how she was deserted by her father in consequence of her marriage; and, according to her desire, her death was mentioned exactly as she wished. She thought that if her father saw it, he would seek out his grandchild. Perhaps he is dead!-at least, no notice has been taken of me; and if it had not been for the chance which threw me in the way of that strange old man, Mr Byfield, I might have been left upon the world without any occupation. He is certainly a very odd old man; he evinced a great degree of interest in me at first, but since he placed me here, has never spoken to me but once. I had been walking the other morning in the park for more than two hours with the children, and being tired, sat down upon one of the benches, while my children walked up and down with their cousin, as their mother wishes, and under the care of Mrs Gresham's French governess; he came so suddenly, that he quite took me by surprise. Are you growing lazy?' he inquired. I answered, No; but that I was not very well. And have you not found out,' he continued, that a governess has no right to be ill?' I answered, 'I knew that; and so was ill but seldom.' jest with me?' he said, sternly. No, sir,' I replied; I speak the truth. If I were independent, I would yield most likely to a pain in my side, or, when my cough keeps me awake all night, send for a doctor. The world believes in the sickness that is heard of, rather than the sickness that must be examined into. No one sees my illness, so I am ill but seldom.' And then he looked so penetratingly into my face, and asked me how I had learned to reason? and I had it on my lip to answer, that I learned to reason by endeavouring to cease to feel, but thought the reply would seem pert from youth to age, so smiled, and held my peace; and when I smiled, he sighed so bitterly, and walked away, and then looked back, and returned and sat down by my side; then gazing in my face, he asked me if I had ever told a lie. And I said truly, in the sight of God, I believed I never had since I "It is very pretty, certainly," said Miss Dawson; "but knew wrong from right. And then he answered, I think it quite time to return home." She was urged that I looked like truth, as all women did when they to this remark by the stare of a couple of gentlemen, lied most. It was unwise, I know; but I had done who, certainly not unobserved by Colette, had followed nothing to deserve such an insult, and I told him so, them for the last few minutes, and, despite their rapid without further parley, but as gently as I could, footsteps, managed to escort them, as soldiers do their thanking him for the kindness he had shown to prisoners, to their own door-Emily maintaining a dignione who had no friend but God. Will you believe fied silence, and Colette divided between her national that he seemed no more moved by what I uttered in love for adventure and a certain womanly disdain of any one way, than if I had been dumb; only, when insulting impertinence, which together--one feeling actI had finished speaking, I could not repress the tearsing one moment and another the next-prompted her to that would come-poor cowardly tears I hate them give vent to one or two clever sarcasms, which provoked so those waters of a troubled heart; and then, shaking his head, he said-But I hear the voice of Mrs Gresham's French governess, so must say adieu for the present. If constant occupation did not increase my weakness, I daresay my spirits would ing that Mr Hylier must have some particular reason for suffering such an inmate. Why-do-you-know-whoyou-have--got-in---your-house ?" These last words exactly as they are printed, the lady advancing her face were pronounced with peculiar emphasis, and divided close to Mrs Hylier's, and opening her eyelids so as to make her round eyes seem half as large again as they really were. "Yes," stammered Mrs Hylier; "a go---verness." "A---nonsense, my dear; she is not a bit better than she should be." "Few of us are," said the meek Mrs Gresham, who, This Colette uttered rapidly, with her strong and pecuMrs Ryal looked daggers at her for a moment, and which even her English partook; and she laughed lightlying to be outdone in suspicion; "I always thought she liar accent, for her French had a flavouring of patois, of then continued." That old Byfield is a wretch." "I always thought so," answered Mrs Hylier, not willwhen her speech was ended. "That," answered Miss Dawson, "is an easy theory, but a bad practice. No matwas his daughter." ter how you are treated, your duty remains the same; it cannot be performed with the same pleasure, but it is the same!" 66 Vell, my dear, so let it be; torment the flesh off Ah, vell, if you go on satisfying your sort of con- and amused their tormentors. Mrs Hylier and Mrs Gresham were at the breakfastroom door as they entered, evidently watching their return. "I did not know you were going out, Miss Dawson," said Mrs Hylier, sternly. "His daughter! that would be milk-white innocence to the fact---she is much worse." "Impossible!" said Mrs Gresham. "He could not be so bad as that," observed Mrs Hylier. All men are bad," pronounced the decided Mrs Ryal; "all men are bad, as I tell my husband; but some are worse than others." "You are mistaken---misinformed, I should have said," quoth the perplexed Mrs Hylier; "he has never taken the smallest notice of her since she has been here---never asked why she was not in the drawing-room. I even one day, thinking to put him in good humour, showed him a tulip she had worked in that everlasting tapestry of mine." "Well, and what did he say ?" "I cannot believe he would put a person of bad cha- "And the object?" "Ah! that rests in the secret recesses of the man's own wicked heart," said Mrs Ryal, with due emphasis; and then added, "To get at their motives is hard for us poor women; but the only way to get even at their acts, is by putting that and that together." This was said with an air of peculiar sagacity. "Now, let Mrs Gresham ask her popinjay of a governess, if, the other day in the park, Miss Dawson did not complain of being tired---now only fancy a governess, whose duty it is, her positive duty, to walk as long with her pupils as it is necessary they should walk---only fancy her being tired!---ah! ah! there is a ruse in the very excuse--if she did not sit down on a seat, and if Mr Byfield, who seems so strange and unconcerned about her here, did not come up, and not only sit down by her side, but take her hand; and then she sulked, and he went away, and came back again, and kept her hand in his, and there they sat like two lovers, in Hyde Park. It is really scandalous to repeat, and makes my cheeks all over in a glow. And to-day, my Mary was in Kensington Gardens---Mary, my own maid ---and she saw your two governesses, ladies, flirting and philandering about; and then, who should she also observe, watching the English girl's every movement, but old Byfield. Well, two dandified gentlemen came up, attracted, Mary says, by the lightness of their manner, and followed them home; but not unobserved; for the old gentleman, his face purple with jealousy". "Or the March wind," suggested Mrs Gresham. "Kept at the other side of the way," continued Mrs Ryal, with a look of contempt at Mrs Gresham. "But that is not all. This morning I sent Mary with a letter to the post, and she overtook Mr Byfield's man, who was talking at the corner of Salter's to one of the butchers. "Are you going to the post-office?' he said. Then will you put my master's letter in for me? And so she took the letters--she is very obliging---and who should it be directed to but Miss Dawson!" Mrs Hylier rang the bell, and inquired of the servant if the governess had received a letter. The man said the three o'clock post had brought her one while she was out; that he believed it had not yet been taken to the school-room; as it was not in his department, could not exactly tell---would inquire---went down, and returned with the letter: it had been left on the kitchen dresser. The lady found no fault with the servant's unpardonable inattention; and when he had left the room, all declared it certainly was Mr Byfield's handwriting. "Will you break the seal ?" inquired Mrs Ryal, eyeing the letter longingly. "Certainly not," answered Mrs Hylier. "Ah!" said Mrs Ryal, with a sigh, "Mary says true enough, secrets are secrets since the packet envelopes came in; then have her down, and see how she will look when she opens it." Mrs Hylier's hand was on the bell, when Mrs Gresham interposed. "Sister," she said, "it occurs to me that we may all be in error; and if so, how will you forgive yourself for wounding the feelings of a poor girl?" "Feelings, indeed!" sneered Mrs Ryal; "why, I vow she has bewitched you as well as the men; can any thing be more evident ?---at least, if she is innocent, give her an opportunity of clearing herself." The bell was rung; and the governess, still smarting under the lash of the previous insult, was sent for. The servant returned with an apology-would Mrs Hylier be so good as to excuse her for a few moments; the servant added, that Miss Dawson was crying. "How I have sustained my spirits since she came into the house is extraordinary," observed Mrs Hylier, smelling her vinaigrette-" she is always sad." "She has good reason, you may depend on it," said Mrs Ryal, significantly. "I think so too," added Mrs Gresham, quietly. "Really, sister," said Mrs Hylier, "to hear you talk of late, one would think I was a savage. I am sure it is quite enough to be plagued with great growing-up daughters, without those governesses; and if I mention school, Mr Hylier begins about morals. I wish you had had Miss Dawson, with all my heart." "My French girl does pretty well; but Mr Gresham says she acts from habit, not principle; and that--but hush"- Emily Dawson entered the room, while the traces of tears were yet fresh upon her fair young face; the earnest desire she had ever felt to perform her duty in the highest and most important vocation which a woman can be called upon to fulfil, had not only given an élevation to her countenance and manner, but an expression to her features which never accompanies a small or sordid mind; and whatever Mrs Hylier chose to say when she was not present, the superiority of mind was so manifest in the manner of the young governess, that, despite the presence of Mrs Ryal, she desired her to be seated, in a tone which signified a request. Then came the question, Had she met Mr Byfield in the Park---sat and conversed with him. To this she frankly answered "Yes," and seemed perfectly unconscious of the occasion of the smile and sneer that passed between Mrs Hylier and Mrs Ryal. She professed herself quite unable to account either for the countenance Mr Byfield had shown her at first, or his subsequent inequality of conduct. He had," she said, "apparently befriended her for the very reason which made the world shun her-because she was friendless and poor." Then Mrs Hylier placed the letter in her hand, and with what Mrs Ryal afterwards termed "unpardonable effrontery," she opened it, and as she read, her countenance became radiant with pleasure. "Well!" exclaimed the two ladies, actuated by the same impulse---" Well, have you any objection to our seeing that letter ?" "I cannot show it to Mrs Hylier," she replied, with perfect frankness, "because Mr Byfield desires me not to do so." "Was ever such hardened impudence!" muttered Mrs Ryal. "It is very kind-very-I am sure," continued Emily, reperusing the letter, and too much absorbed with and delighted by its contents to hear the remark Mrs Ryal made. "It is too---too much!" "What is ?" said Mrs Gresham. "To take a lodging for me at Hampstead, where I am to remain for several months, until I get stronger and better--and all at his own expense. I remember when I would have been too proud to accept such a favour, thinking I could earn all I required; but of late I have been so weak---so”- She looked from the gentle face of Mrs Gresham to the other ladies, and, astonished at the expression of displeasure and scorn on their countenances, she paused, and did not utter another word. "I think, then, the sooner you leave my house the better," said Mrs Hylier---" the sooner the better. Oh, what will Mr Hylier say יי! "What have I done ?" exclaimed Miss Dawson. "Oh, what a world it is---to see such a face as that masking so much vice!" ejaculated Mrs Ryal. "Are you aware what will be said if you place yourself under Mr Byfield's protection in this way?" inquired Mrs Gresham, still kindly. "Let her go, by all means---there, you may go---and the sooner out of the house the better! Oh! to think of my having such a person as that to take care of my in-houseless, homeless orphan. You have done me cruel nocent children!" and Mrs Hylier, overpowered by a wrong by your suspicion, and you send me forth to make sudden fit of maternal love, fell into strong hysterics--- the suspicion real; but the God who is above all will tears are too weak testimonies of grief for ladies of feelsave me yet!" ing. Emily walked up stairs, the open letter in her hand. Miss Mercier was still in the school-room. "Ma'amselle," said Miss Dawson, "Mr Byfield has written to me that, knowing I am overworked and ill, he has taken for me a country lodging for a few months. You know who he is, and all about him?" "And surely you are not going to accept that!" replied the French girl; "if you do, you lose character at once. No one evere do such a naughty thing as that; he must be bad man. Do, pray, send it back; young men sometimes make love for love, but old men always for vickedness; bah!" Of all the difficult things in the world, it is the most difficult for people of the world to comprehend the unselfishness of the good. "I don't know how it is," persisted Ma'amselle; "you are in life nearly as long as I am, and yet you don't know half so moche. Depend upon it, the old man is a bad man. If you go into the lodging he take, you nevere come out with a good charactere. Take my advice-I know more than you." "Good-bye, Ma'amselle," said Emily; "thank you for your frankness. God bless you; leave me by myself to think a little." When Emily was alone, she read the letter over again. The unaccountable interest Mr Byfield had taken in her as a stranger, did not seem so strange as the carelessness he had evinced towards her for so long a time. Emily Dawson's own pure mind could hardly conceive the possibility of what she had heard from Mrs Hylier and Mrs Ryal; but she had often been astonished at the acuteness of the Frenchwoman's perceptions. Could such baseness be possible? Her whole nature seemed changed in a moment; she trembled convulsively, fearing she knew not what; and, from suspecting nothing, she suspected every thing. Why should Mr Byfield forbid her mentioning the subject of his letter to Mrs Hylier? why? But her brain whirled-she could not think. The housemaid entered the room; she was a kind girl, and in tears. "Please, miss, my mistress says you're to go to-night," she said. "Where?" inquired the governess, in a tone of such utter helplessness that it touched the poor thing to the heart. "I'm sure I don't know, miss. She said you could be at no loss for a home; and here's the month's salary and month's warning money." "Not to Mr Byfield," she thought; "I must not go there; they all say that; and yet this woman turns me out to the very vice she would have me shun. God help me-I am quite, quite alone!" "Master will be in a fine way, that I know, when he comes home," continued the girl, good-naturedly busying herself packing up Miss Dawson's wardrobe. “I'm sure hope you ain't going to Mr Byfield's; though I'm sure there's no harm, yet I hope you're not, miss. If you wouldn't be above it, my mother has a little pretty house at Chelsea, and you might be there till you could turn yourself about-safe, as one may say; and if so be you wish it, I'd be on my honour and my oath not to tell-not the old gentleman, or any one else." "Any where, Mary-any where," said the governess, listlessly; "any where, away from all I have seen in this house." Elizabeth, the youngest of her pupils, rushed into the room, and flinging her arms round her neck, sobbed"You shall not go, dear Miss Dawson-you shall not go. Mamma said I was not to come near you, you were so wicked; but I said I would." "Your mamma mistakes," answered the governess, not even in the anguish of that hour forgetting how necessary it is to make the parent appear right always, at least in intention, in the eyes of the child. "She mistakes, dearest Elizabeth; she will not always think so; but you must not cling round me. God bless you, my dear child; you did wrong to come when mamma said you were not to do so. God bless you-be good, be truthful, and obedient; God bless you!" and with a gentle force she obliged the weeping child to leave the room. A short time completed her preparations, or rather the preparations which Mary made for her. It is pleasant and cheering, and one of the brightest pages in the great book of human nature, to see the kindness which the poor bestow upon those who are in trouble. The more frequent than people imagine. It does not descend in showers of coin, but in words of kindness; and is as pure as the dew which an all-wise nature distils into the cups of drooping flowers. evidence of the existence of this benevolent feeling is far "Let me tie your bonnet, miss, and pin your shawl. Lawk, how numb your hands are! Then, you'll go to my mother's, I think you said, miss, and no one shall know; she'll treat you as it becomes her like to treat a lady, rich or poor. The cab is ready. Now, keep a good heart, Miss Dawson; God is above us all. I'll open the door myself," she continued;" and the trunk is in; and keep up, miss-lies are found out sooner or later. Why," she exclaimed, seeing that Emily paused opposite the drawing-room," surely you are not going to be more insulted? You might as well talk to a stone wall as to my missus". Emily nevertheless entered the apartment, where Mrs Hylier was alone, pondering over, in no pleasant mood, the occurrences of the past hours-thinking how she had acted in decided opposition to her husband's desire, who willed it that Mr Byfield was never to be contradicted, at least in his house; and though she was half-convinced of Emily's unworthiness, she knew how hard it would be to convince him. The pale shrouded girl walked silently up to where Mrs Hylier was seated. "I come," she said, "to bid you remember what I say that you will (heartless as you are) shed tears before long for the injustice and insult you have heaped upon the head of a She spoke these few words in the tone of a breaking heart, and without further words she quitted the house. During the short time of her residence there, she had conferred more lasting service upon Mrs Hylier's children than they had ever received before---she had sown healthful and truthful seed. Not content with the teaching by lessons, she had hallowed every tree, and leaf, and blade of grass, with a history. She placed a few brilliant and beautiful shells in their way, and then, without dull or dry detail, she interested them in the desire for knowledge as to where they came from and to what class they belonged. The music lesson was made of historic value by the record, if the task had been attended to, of its author, and an anecdote that bore upon its composition. The analysation of a flower became a botanical lesson, without its pedantry; and every thing she had touched upon in science and art-two words which her pupils had imbibed a hatred for, from lengthy catechisms and dry details-were illuminated at once by her simple and happy method of conveying instruction. A new existence dawned upon their minds: they understood why their hoop rolled, and why it came to the ground; they understood why morning followed night, and why the heat was at noon the most intense. They had learned more orally than they had ever learned from books. Poor Emily knew this; and as her arm encircled her trunk, and her hot fevered breath hung upon the closed windows of the rattling cab, which was taking her she knew not where, the words of the French teacher rang in her ears-Torment the flesh off your bones---plague yourself to death--fag, fag---and see! At the last, you will have no more thanks for your heavy toil than I shall have for my light labour." "Still," she murmured, “I have done my duty." Please, ma'am," said the man to an elderly woman who opened the door of a small house, "here's a lady, like, your daughter in Kensington has sent you, as a lodger; and you are to be particular kind to her, and she'll try and run down to-morrow night, between lights. The fare is paid, miss-the young woman paid it. She said she knew you hadn't changed your cheque." Mary's mother did not look as good-natured as Mary herself. But Emily was so bowed down by circumstances as hardly to observe the difference. "Well," observed the woman to her youngest daughter ---"well, I never saw any one so careless about accommodation. Why, she said the back would do as well as the front room, though I told her she might have either at the same rent; and if I had not undressed her, she'd have either sat up all night, or lain down in her clothes. She's more like a dead than a living woman." ECONOMICS OF THE MANSE. A FEW years ago, the Rev. Dr Paterson, a clergyman of the Scottish Established Church, wrote a remarkably pleasant volume, styled "The Manse Garden," with the design of improving his brethren in the very laudable art of laying out and making the most of their small gardens; and we understand that it has met with the success which its merits as well as its benevolent intentions deserved. The Scottish clergy seldom travel into the field of authorcraft-the better, perhaps, for their flocks, as well as for their own pockets, as we publishers are apt to present rather startling balance-sheets to gentlemen who print on their own account. The reverend author of the above production was so well aware of the danger of such adventures, that, with his usual kindness, he tells his clerical friends by all means to beware of being itching desire to appear in print. afflicted with that awful calamity, "the bite"-the In spite of these obliging hints, however, a minister occasionally gets infected with the disease; and it now appears that one, a venerable father in his district, has plucked up courage to emulate Dr Paterson in his own line, having just ushered into existence a volume of a similar character, referring to all the odd matters which may be supposed to concern a clergyman in the management of his rural possessions. It is entitled, "Clerical Economics; or Hints, Rural and Household, to Ministers and Others of Limited Income,”* and we must say that we like it fully as well as "The Manse Garden." Its author is one of those delightful clergymen of the old school, who, with much good sense in their composition, think it no crime to be cheerful, and occasionally to go the length of saying something jocular in their own quiet way. At the opening of his budget, the reverend father-who, by the way, and it is well to keep the fact in mind, has no more than L.150 per annum to keep soul and body together, and present a decent face to the world-has much to say about how to battle with heritors,† a class of beings whom he considers no better than they should be. Hear him: did belong to the landed interest. On the contrary, "The fund from which the stipend is drawn never it belongs as much to the church as the coat on the heritor's back does to the heritor himself. Every body knows that the teinds and church-lands were wrenched from the church at the Reformation. The very king joined in the scramble for a share of the plunder. Not only were castles, manors, monasteries, with extensive domains, lavished on lazy court fa * One neat small volume. Edinburgh: John Johnston. London R. Groombridge. 1842. These landed gentry who pay the stipends of the clergy in Scotland are termed heritors--properly, inheritors of teinds or tithes. |