let me fall, Stephen"—for they got to call me by my name, and to know the missus, by her coming in to help a bit; for the old lady asked me to recommend 'em an honest woman, and I knowed none honester than my wife. And so it was with everybody-it didn't matter who it was they all loved the poor gal; and I've had the wife come home and sit and talk about her, and about our Fanny as died, till she's been that upset she's cried terribly.

Autumn came in werry wet and cold, and there was an end to my jobs there. Winter was werry severe, but I kep' on hearing from the missus how the poor gal was-sometimes better, sometimes worse: and the missus allus shook her head werry sadly when she talked about her.

Jennywerry and Feberwerry went by terribly cold, and then March came in quite warm and fine, so that things got so forrard, you could buy radishes wonderful cheap in April; and one night the wife comes home and tells me that if it was as fine nex' day as it had been, I was to call and take the old lady and her daughter out.

Nex' day was splendid. It was as fine a spring day as ever I did see, and I sticks a daffydowndilly in on each side of Kangaroo's head, and then spends twopence in a couple o' bunches o' wilets, and pins 'em in on the side where the poor gal used to sit, puts clean straw in the boot, and then drives to the place with the top lid open, so as to sweeten the inside, because swells had been smoking there that morning.

"Jest run yer sponge and leather over the apron a bit, Buddy," I says to our waterman, afore I left the stand.

"Got a wedding on?" he says, seeing how pertickler I was.

“There, look alive!” I says, quite snappish, for I didn't feel in a humour to joke; and then when I'd got all as I thought right, I drives up, keeping the lid open, as I said afore.

When I draws up I puts the nose-bag on the old horse, for him to amuse himself with, and so as I could leave him, for he wouldn't stir an inch with that bag on to please all the pleacemen in London. Then I rings, and waits, and at last gets my orders to go and help the young lady down.

I takes off my hat, wipes my shoes well, and goes up, and there she was waiting, and smiled so pleasantly again, and held out her hand to me, as though I'd been a friend, instead of a rough, weather-battered street cabman. And do you know what I did, as I went in there, with my eyes all dim at seeing her so, so

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changed? Why, I felt as if I ought to do it, and I knelt down and took her beautiful white hand in mine, and kissed it, and left a big tear on it; for something seemed to say so plainly that she'd soon be where I hoped my own poor gal was, whom I always say we lost, but my wife says, "No, not lost, for she is ours still."

She was so light now that I carried her down in a minute; and when she was in the cab and saw the wilets, she took 'em down, and held 'em in her hand, and nodded and smiled again at me, as though she thanked me for them. "Go the same way as you went first time, Stephen," she says.

And I pushed over all the quieter bits, and took her out beyond Hampstead; and there, in the greenest and prettiest spot I could find, I pulls up, and sits there listening to the soft whispers of her voice, and feeling somehow that it was for the last time.

After a bit I goes gently on again, more and more towards the country, where the hedges were turning beautiful and green, and all looked so bright and gay.

Bimeby I stops again, for there was a pretty view, and you could see miles away. Of course I didn't look at them if I could help it, for the real secret of people enjoying a ride is being with a driver who seems no more to 'em than the horse-a man, you see, who knows his place. But I couldn't help just stealing one or two looks at the inside where that poor gal lay back in the corner, looking out at the bright spring-time, and holding them two bunches o' wilets close to her face. I was walking backwards and forwards then, patting the horse and straightening his harness, when I just catches the old lady's eye, and saw she looked rather frightened, and she leans over to her daughter and calls her by name quickly; but the poor girl did not move, only stared straight out at the blue sky, and smiled so softly and sweetly.

I didn't want no telling what to do, for I was in my seat and the old horse flying amost before you could have counted ten; and away we went, full pace, till I come up to a doctor's, dragged at the bell, and had him up to the cab in no time; and then he rode on the footboard of the cab, in front of the apron, with the shutters let down; and he whispered to me to drive back softly, and I did.

The old lady has lodged with us ever since, for I took a better place on purpose, and my missus always attends on her. She's werry fond o' talking with my wife about their two gals who have gone before; but though I often

take her for a drive over the old spots, she never says a word to me about such things; while soon after the funeral she told Sarah to tell me as the wilets were not taken from the poor gal's hand, same time sending me a fi-pun note to buy a suit o' mourning.

Of course I couldn't wear that every day, but there was a bit o' rusty crape on my old shiny hat not such a werry long time ago; and I never buy wilets now, for as they lie in the baskets in spring-time, sprinkled with the drops o' bright water, they seem to me to have tears upon 'em, and make me feel sad and upset, for they start me off thinking about "My Fare."

O! gently on thy suppliant's head,

Dread goddess, lay thy chast'ning hand! Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad,

Not circled with the vengeful band
(As by the impious thou art seen)
With thund'ring voice, and threat'ning mien,
With screaming Horror's fun'ral cry,

Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty:
Thy form benign, oh goddess, wear,
Thy milder influence impart,
Thy philosophic train be there

To soften, not to wound, my heart.
The gen'rous spark extinct revive
Teach me to love, and to forgive,
Exact my own defects to scan,

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man.

Wisdom in sable garb array'd,

Immers'd in rapt'rous thought profound, And Melancholy, silent maid,

With leaden eye that loves the ground, Still on thy solemn steps attend: Warm Charity, the gen'ral friend,

With Justice, to herself severe,

PAINTING AND PAINTERS.

BY JOHN RUSKIN.

Let us endeavour briefly to mark the real relations of three vast ranks of men, whom I shall call, for convenience in speaking of them, Purists, Naturalists, and Sensualists; not that these terms express their real characters, but I know no word, and cannot coin a convenient one, which would accurately express the opposite of Purist; and I keep the terms Purist and Naturalist in order to comply, as far as possible, with the established usage of language on the Continent. Now observe; in saying that nearly everything presented to us in nature has mingling in it of good and evil, I do not mean that nature is conceivably improvable, called evil, if we could see far enough into its or that anything that God has made could be uses; but that with respect to immediate effects or appearances, it may be so, just as the hard rind or bitter kernel of a fruit may be an evil to the eater, though in the one is the protection of the fruit, and in the other its continuance. The Purist, therefore, does not mend nature, but receives from nature and from God that which is good for him; while the Sensualist fills himself" with the husks that the swine did eat."

The three classes may, therefore, be likened to men reaping wheat, of which the Purists take the fine flour and the Sensualists the chaff and straw, but the Naturalists take all home, and make their cake of the one and their couch of the other.

For instance. We know more certainly every day that whatever appears to us harmful in the universe has some beneficent or necessary

harvest brightens the sunbeams for harvests yet unsown, and that the volcano which buries a city preserves a thousand from destruction! But the evil is not for the time less fearful, because we have learned it to be necessary; and we easily understand the timidity or the tenderness of the spirit which would withdraw itself from the presence of destruction, and create in its imagination a world of which the peace should be unbroken, in which the sky should not darken nor the sea rage, in which the leaf should not change nor the blossom wither. That man is greater, however, who contemplates with an equal mind the alternations of terror and of beauty; who, not rejoicing less beneath the sunny sky, can bear also to watch the bars of twilight narrowing on the horizon; and, not less sensible to the blessing of the peace of nature, can rejoice in the magnificence of the ordinances by which that peace is protected and secured. But separated from both by an immeasurable distance would be the man who delighted in convulsion and disease for their own sake; who found his daily food in the disorder of nature mingled with the suffering of humanity; and watched joyfully at the right hand of the Angel whose appointed work is to destroy as well as to accuse, while the corners of the house of feasting were struck by the wind from the wilderness.

And far more is this true when the subject of contemplation is humanity itself. The passions of mankind are partly protective, partly beneficent, like the chaff and grain of the corn; but none without their use, none without nobleness when seen in balanced unity with the rest of the spirit which they are charged to defend. The passions of which the end is the continuance of the race; the indignation which is to arm it against injustice, or strengthen it to resist wanton injury; and the fear1 which lies at the root of prudence, reverence, and awe, are all honourable and beautiful, so long as man is regarded in his relations to the existing world. The religious Purist, striving to conceive him withdrawn from those relations, effaces from the countenance the traces of all transitory passion, illumines it with holy hope and love, and seals it with the serenity of heavenly peace; he conceals the forms of the body by the deep-folded garment, or else represents them under severely chastened types, and would rather paint them emaciated by the fast, or pale from the torture, than strengthened by exertion or flushed by emotion. But the

1 Not selfish fear, caused by want of trust in God, or of resolution in the soul.

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great naturalist takes the human being in its wholeness, in its mortal as well as its spiritual strength. Capable of sounding and sympathizing with the whole range of its passions, he brings one majestic harmony out of them all; he represents it fearlessly in all its acts and thoughts, in its haste, its anger, its sensuality, and its pride, as well as in its fortitude or faith, but makes it noble in them all; he casts aside the veil from the body, and beholds the mysteries of its form like an angel looking down on an inferior creature: there is nothing which he is reluctant to behold, nothing that he is ashamed to confess; with all that lives, triumphing, falling, or suffering, he claims kindred, either in majesty or in mercy, yet standing, in a sort, afar off, unmoved even in the deepness of his sympathy; for the spirit within him is too thoughtful to be grieved, too brave to be appalled, and too pure to be polluted.

How far beneath these two ranks of men shall we place in the scale of being those whose pleasure is only in sin or in suffering; who habitually contemplate humanity in poverty or decrepitude, fury or sensuality; whose works are either temptations to its weakness, or triumphs over its ruin, and recognize no other subjects for thought or admiration than the subtlety of the robber, the rage of the soldier, or the joy of the Sybarite. It seems strange, when thus definitely stated, that such a school should exist. Yet consider a little what gaps and blanks would disfigure our gallery and chamber walls, in places that we have long approached with reverence, if every picture, every statue, were removed from them, of which the subject was either the vice or the misery of mankind, portrayed without any moral purpose: consider the innumerable groups having reference merely to various forms of passion, low or high; drunken revels and brawls among peasants, gambling or fighting scenes among soldiers, amours and intrigues among every class, brutal battle-pieces, banditti subjects, gluts of torture and death in famine, wreck, or slaughter, for the sake merely of the excitement-that quickening and suppling of the dull spirit that cannot be gained for it but by bathing it in blood, afterwards to wither back into stained and stiffened apathy; and then that whole vast false heaven of sensual passion, full of nymphs, satyrs, graces, goddesses, and I know not what, from its high seventh circle in Correggio's Antiope, down to the Grecized ballet-dancers and smirking Cupids of the Parisian upholsterer. Sweep away all this remorselessly, and see how much art we should have left.-The Stones of Venice.

THE CONSOLATIONS OF THE MUSE.

BY GEORGE WITHERS.

She doth tell me where to borrow
Comfort in the midst of sorrow;
Makes the desolatest place
To her presence be a grace,
And the blackest discontents
Be her fairest ornaments.
In my former days of bliss,
His divine skill taught me this,
That from everything I saw,
I could some invention draw;
And raise pleasure to her height
Through the meanest object's sight;
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustling;
By a daisy, whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree,
She could more infuse in me,
Than all Nature's beauties can,
In some other wiser man.
By her help I also now
Make this churlish place allow
Some things that may sweeten gladness
In the very gall of sadness:
The dull loneness, the black shade
That these hanging vaults have made,
The strange music of the waves,
Beating on these hollow caves,
This black den, which rocks emboss,
Overgrown with eldest moss,
The rude portals that give light
More to terror than delight,
This my chamber of neglect
Wall'd about with disrespect.
From all these, and this dull air,
A fit object for despair,

She hath taught me by her might
To draw comfort and delight.

Therefore then, best earthly bliss,
I will cherish thee for this!
Poesy, thou sweet'st content
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent;
Though they as a trifle leave thee,
Whose dull thoughts cannot conceive thee,
Though thou be to them a scorn,
That to nought but earth are born;
Let my life no longer be,
Than I am in love with thee!
Though our wise ones call it madness,
Let me never taste of gladness
If I love not thy maddest fits
Above all their greatest wits!
And though some, too seeming holy,
Do account thy raptures folly,
Thou dost teach me to contemn,
What makes knaves and fools of them!

A JOCULAR BARONET.
BY T. SMOLLETT.1

I believe there is something mischievous in my disposition, for nothing diverts me so much as to see certain characters tormented with false terrors. We last night lodged at the house of Sir Thomas Bulford, an old friend of my uncle, a jolly fellow, of moderate intellects, who, in spite of the gout, which hath lamed him, is resolved to be merry to the last; and mirth he has a particular knack in extracting from his guests, let their humour be ever so caustic or refractory. Besides our company, there was in the house a fat-headed justice of the peace, called Frogmore, and a country practitioner in surgery, who seemed to be our landlord's chief companion and confidant. We found the knight sitting on a couch, with his crutches by his side, and his feet supported on cushions; but he received us with a hearty welcome, and seemed greatly rejoiced at our arrival. After tea we were entertained with a sonata on the harpsichord, by Lady Bulford, who sang and played to admiration; but Sir Thomas seemed to be a little asinine in the article of ears, though he affected to be in raptures; and begged his wife to favour us with an arietta of her own composing. This arietta, however, she no sooner began to perform, than he and the justice fell asleep; but the moment she ceased playing, the knight waked snorting, and exclaimed: "O cara! what d'ye think, gentlemen? Will you talk any more of your Pergolesi and your Corelli?" At the same time he thrust his tongue in one cheek, and leered with one eye at the doctor and me, who sat on his left hand. He concluded the pantomime with a loud laugh, which he could command at all times extempore. Notwithstanding his disorder, he did not do penance at supper, nor did he ever refuse his glass when the toast went round, but rather encouraged a quick circulation, both by precept and example.

I soon perceived the doctor had made himself very necessary to the baronet: he was the whetstone of his wit, the butt of his satire, and his operator in certain experiments of humour which were occasionally tried on strangers. Justice Frogmore was an excellent subject for this species of philosophy: sleek and corpulent, solemn and shallow, he had

1 From Smollett's last novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, which was written at Monte Novo, near Leghorn, in 1770-71. Scott characterized this work as "the last, and, like music, sweetest in the close,' the most pleasing of his compositions."