partner brings youth and zeal as a set-off against the money and connection which his older but less active partner has to offer. What say you ?” whose warm manners sprang from his warm heart, clannish." returned to his camp with two spare rifles, and a good stock of ammunition." The Indians in the remote region of the far-west, "I say, plaise your honour," replied the foreman are, with the exception of the Blackfeet and their hastily, "I'd sooner beg my bread than be behoulden to hereditary foes the Bannecks, generally more simple him. Let him pay me my wages; that's all I'll ask." and docile than the tribes nearer the settlements, a "I don't owe you any wages; and I've had enough circumstance apparently arising from their extreme of you already; and more than that, you're the last poverty, and the difficulty of procuring sufficient susteIrishman I'll have any call to. I'll keep clear of my nance. A party of Nez Percés, Chinooks, and Kayouse, countrymen in future; for when they find one of themencamped near the hunters, are described as possessing selves a little up in the world, they'll try to pull him a most amiable spirit of sincere piety, and their toleradown, and hardly give a 'thank ye' for all you can do." tion of the creed and religious observances of the white Our worthy friend cited the Scotch baker as an men might well teach a lesson to civilisation. "After example of how much people even in small trade might "If they were less so," I said, "I should not esteem supper was concluded," says Mr Townshend," we sat do for each other by being united; he urged, that it them as highly as I do. I confess that I think clan-down on a buffalo robe at the entrance of the lodge, was our duty to assist each other, and used every ar- nishness, as you call it, the root of much noble action. to see the Indians at their devotions. The whole gument in his power to dissuade them from "going If every country provided for those of its own who thirteen were soon collected at the call of one whom to law," but in vain. Charley Murphy entered into need provision, we should have no distress. There is they had chosen for their chief, and seated with sober a long story as explanation about board and lodging, something in the everlasting affection the Scotch sedate countenances around a large fire. After reand weekly money, and a feather bed, and new blue bear each other, that elevates them in my esteem al- maining in perfect silence for perhaps fifteen minutes, sleeves and apron, and the grinding of a knife and most beyond the inhabitants of all other countries. the chief commenced an harangue in a solemn and steel, which detail caused his foreman to exclaim I have seldom known a Scotchman whom I did not impressive tone, reminding them of the object for against his meanness. One offered to take an oath that this was the case, and the other that that was the respect; and I wish, with all my heart, that the Irish which they were thus assembled, that of worshipping were as united by the magic of the sound of Native the Great Spirit who made the light and the darkcase, and at last the magistrate was obliged to tell Land.' In this should be sunk all political differences ness, the fire and the water,' and assured them that if them that they had better go to Queen Square to all religious animosities. There is no country in the they offered up their prayers to him with but one settle the business. To Queen Square they accord- world that has sent forth finer soldiers, better sailors, tongue,' they would certainly be accepted. He then ingly went, and the magistrate decided that the wages firmer patriots, more eloquent statesmen. Singlerose from his squatting position to his knees, and his were due, and ought to be paid, and paid they were, handed, an Irishman conquers. Singly triumphant in example was followed by all the others. In this situ though, having run on for a considerable time, to get art and literature, what might they not have accomation he commenced a prayer, consisting of short together the amount caused Charley Murphy to run plished long ere this for the good of their ill-used sentences, uttered rapidly, but with great apparent in debt; for the young foreman, irritated by his mas-country, if they had only been united-only known fervour, his hands clasped upon his breast, and his ter's conduct, would grant no time. But this was not the inestimable value of domestic and social union- eyes cast upwards with a beseeching look towards all: Charley had a daughter, and this daughter and the only remembered that a house divided against itself heaven. At the conclusion of each sentence, a choral young foreman had become strongly attached to each cannot stand-and also kept in mind poor old Dick response of a few words was made, accompanied freother. At first Charley Murphy used to laugh at this Delany's quotation, which the practice of ages has quently by low moaning. The prayer lasted about young love, but afterwards refused his consent. The proved true, that union is strength ?" twenty minutes. daughter, English born, had more of English wilfulness than Irish yielding in her disposition, and married without his consent. This was certainly an imprudent step, as little by little they fell into poverty, and Charley Murphy confessed, when too late, that if he had assisted his countryman at the commencement, if he had behaved justly, if they had remained together like the bundle of sticks, he would not have been left in his old age without his pretty daughter to keep his books, or a hale hearty son-in-law to attend to their mutual business. As it was, the young people migrated to Australia; while the baker's daughter, who with her father's consent married the Scotchman, is able to drive over in their own comfortable cart on Sundays to see Macneil, whose national and most praiseworthy consideration for his own countryman secured his "Jessie" in the end a comfortable home and a good husband. "I hate the Scotch," exclaimed a hot-headed Irish friend of mine, the other day, "they are so clannish." I could not help asking him if he did not think a little of the same quality would wonderfully improve his countrymen? This young man is now doing very well in the world, and I hope felt too much the bitter loneliness of an Irishman in London, to be cold, without a reason, to those of his own land who come hither to seek their fortunes. The prejudice in England for a length of time was cruelly great against my countrymen. When a handsome young Irishman got into English society, I have seen the chaperons draw more closely to their charges, and, while they looked icebergs and daggers at the good-humoured face of the somewhat forward youth, whisper the young ladies to "beware, for an Irish adventurer had entered the charmed circle." I do not attempt to deny that the young man made the most of his handsome face, and blarneyed" to the best of his ability; but English, ay, and Scotch men too, do the same thing; and if they do not succeed as well as the Irishman, it is only because they lack ability, not inclination. I do not mean for a moment to defend the unprincipled adventurer of any country; but I do sincerely rejoice that the English have discovered that imposition is not by any means the necessary attendant on an Irish face or an Irish tongue. But to the answer to my question. "Indeed and you are right," he said. "When I was coming to London, I bothered the very life out of every one I knew in Dublin, to give me letters of introduction to all the Irish they knew in the grate city. I did not care so much for letters to the English, like a fool as I was, for I was not aware then that when once you are known by the English, your hold upon their friendship is as firm as the Rock of Cashel; and so I thought my fortune was made when I had secured introductions to several Irish leaders. Well, I left a card and a letter at one house, and received a note saying that really the influx of young Irish gentlemen seeking employment was so great, that he had, however painful to his feelings, been obliged to decline receiving introductions at all. Several asked me to dinner: others to 'tea and turn out.' The member for our town, who had made fierce love to my aunt, and spoken of my uncle as his talented and distinguished countryman' during the election, by some strange chance was never at home when I called, as I well knew, for I heard him tell the servant so himself. One fellow gave me an introduction to his friend in the city, and I afterwards found out that he clearly said, though he wished me well, he would not be answerable for me, as I was Irish. Another could not introduce me to his partner, who had the management of his business, because he had a family of daughters. Certainly, out of about five-and-twenty, I found one this subject more fully, by showing the light and dark, MR TOWNSHEND'S EXCURSION TO THE CONCLUDED. THE party of fur-hunters with whom Mr Townshend On the 14th of July (1834), the party pitched their head bent to his breast, commenced a kind of psalm After its conclusion, the chief, still maintaining the same position of his body and hands, but with his or sacred song, in which the whole company presently joined. The song was a simple expression of a few sounds, no intelligible words being uttered. It resembled the words Ho-ha-ho-ha-ho-ha-ha-a, commencing in a low tone, and gradually swelling to a full, round, and beautifully modulated chorus. During the song, the clasped hands of the worshippers were moved rapidly across the breast, and their bodies swung with great energy to the time of the music. The chief ended the song by a kind of swelling groan, which was echoed in chorus. It was then taken up by another, and the same routine was gone through. The whole ceremony occupied perhaps an hour and a half; a short silence then succeeded, after which each Indian rose from the ground, and disappeared in the darkness with a step noiseless as that of a spectre. I think I never was more gratified by any exhibition in my life. The humble, subdued, and beseeching looks of the poor untutored beings who were calling upon their heavenly father to forgive their sins, and continue his mercies to them, and the evident and heartfelt sincerity which characterised the whole scene, was truly affecting, and very impressive. The next day being the Sabbath, our good missionary, Mr Jason Lee, was requested to hold a meeting, with which he obligingly complied. A convenient shady spot was selected in the forest adjacent, and the greater part of our men, as well as the whole of Mr M'Kay's company, including the Indians, attended. The usual forms of the Methodist service, to which Mr Lee is attached, were gone through, and were followed by a brief but excellent and appropriate exhortation by that gentleman. The people were remarkably quiet and attentive, and the Indians sat upon the ground like statues. Although not one of them could understand a word that was said, they nevertheless maintained the most strict and decorous silence, kneeling when the preacher kneeled, and rising when he rose, evidently with a view of paying him and us a suitable respect, however much their own notions as to the proper and most acceptable forms of worship might have been opposed to ours. A meeting for worship in the Rocky Mountains is almost as unusua as the appearance of a herd of buffalo in the settlements. A sermon was perhaps never preached here before, but for myself I really enjoyed the whole scene; it possessed the charm of novelty, to say nothing of the salutary effect which I sincerely hope 't may produce." On the 6th of August, the encampment broke up, and the company, now consisting of but thirty men, and one hundred and sixteen horses, set out on its farther travels. Sterile plains, craggy steeps, foaming rivers, were passed with more or less difficulty, but without any accident. At night the camp was generally beset by wolves, whose howling cries disturbed the repose of the wayfarers. Provisions at length became scarce, and the only supplies were an occasional wild animal brought down by a bullet, or dried salmon procured from the Snake or Shoshoné Indians. Our traveller's account of a visit to a Snake village does not give one a taste for savage social life. "Early in the morning I strolled into the Snake camp. It consists of about thirty lodges or wigwams, formed generally of branches of trees tied together in a conic summit, and covered with buffalo, deer, or elk skins. Men and little children were lolling about the ground all around the wigwams, together with a heterogeneous assemblage of dogs, cats, some tamed prairie wolves, and other 'varmints.' The dogs growled and snapped when I approached, the wolves cowered and looked cross, and the cats ran away and hid themselves in dark corners. They had not been accustomed to the face of a white man, and all the quadrupeds seemed to regard me as some monstrous production, more to be feared than loved or courted. This dislike, however, did not appear to extend to the bipeds, for many of every age and sex gathered around me, and seemed to be examining me critically in all directions. The men looked complacently at me-the women, the dear creatures, smiled upon me, and the little naked, pot-bellied children crawled around my feet, examining the fashion of my hard shoes, and playing with the long fringes of my leathern inexpressibles. But I scarcely know how to commence a description of the tout ensemble of the camp, or to frame a sentence which will give an adequate idea of the extreme filth and most horrific nastiness of the whole vicinity. I shall, therefore, but transiently glance at it, omitting many of the most disgusting and abomin able features. Immediately as I entered the village, my olfactories were assailed by the most vile and mephitic odours, which I found to proceed chiefly from great piles of salmon entrails and garbage which were lying festering and rotting in the sun, around the very doors of the habitations. Fish, both fresh and half dried, were scattered all over the ground, under the feet of the dogs, wolves, and Indian children; and others which had been split, were hanging on rude platforms erected within the precincts of the camp. Some of the women were making their breakfast of the great red salmon eggs, as large as peas, and using a wooden spoon to convey them to their mouths. Occasionally, also, by way of varying the repast, they would take a huge pinch of a drying fish which was lying on the ground near them. Many of the children were similarly employed; and the little imps would also have hard contests with the dogs for a favourite morsel, the former roaring and blubbering, the latter yelping and snarling, and both rolling over and over together upon the savoury soil. The whole economy of the lodges, inside and outside, was of a piece with every thing else about them-filthy beyond description-the very skins which covered the wigwams were black and stiff with rancid salmon fat, and the dresses, if dresses they may be called, of the women, were of the same colour and condition, from the same cause. These dresses are little square pieces of deer-skin, fastened with a thong around the loins, and reaching about half way to the knees; the rest of the person is entirely naked. Some of the women had little children clinging like bullfrogs to their backs, without being fastened, and in that situation extracting their lactiferous sustenance from the breast, which was thrown over the shoulders. It is almost needless to say, that I did not remain long in the Snake camp; for although I had been a considerable time estranged from the abodes of luxury, and had become somewhat accustomed to, at least, a partial assimilation to a state of nature, yet I was not prepared for what I saw here. I never had fancied any thing so utterly abominable, and was glad to escape to a purer and more wholesome atmosphere." the great Oregon, the first appearance of which gave They now immediately reached the fort, at which a prices paid by the trade. The wages paid to women Much of this employment of women and boys has been caused by strikes among the journeymen tailors. One person being asked if the tailors suffered much from the strike of 1834, answered, "Very much so; we have never recovered from the blow which we then sustained. We were urged on by scheming men to join the general union of the trades of the whole kingdom, and we were made the forlorn hope to first make the attack. We were promised great support from other trades, but we did not receive it. Many considerate men disapproved of it; but it was all in vain. There were the secret signs, and the secret oaths, and all such folly; and the whole quite illegal. Since that time, the general appearance of the trade is horrible, and the societies cannot pay sick-money and funeral-money as formerly." BOOT AND SHOE MAKERS. The wages of the men who make the bottoms of boots are from 20s. to 24s. a-week, and some get 30s. They are paid by the piece. From the evidence presented, it appears that the shoemakers are of a dissolute character. Mr Grove's evidence is of too original a description to bear condensing. "Question. How many hours a-day do they work! a-Answer. No man on earth can tell that. They begin in the morning when they like; but if any mortal thing happen, up they are from their stools, and after it; and sometimes they will go and spend their time drinking with an acquaintance; and, to make up for it, they will work sometimes till I1 and 12 o'clock at night. At Fort Vancouver, Mr Townshend procured passage on board an American vessel, which carried him to the Sandwich Islands, and there he passed the winter months. He afterwards returned to the Columbia and its environs among the Rocky Mountains, to pursue his scientific researches; and his purpose being at length fulfilled, he returned by sea, touching at Valparaiso, on the South American coast, and reached home after an absence of three years. BRICKLAYERS. Their wages are 5s. a-day. They work from six to six, but have half an hour to breakfast, an hour at dinner, and half an hour at four. They therefore work ten hours a-day in summer. They seldom get any thing by working over time. Bricklayers' labourers have 2s. 9d. or 3s. a-day. They work, of course, the same hours as the bricklayers. Both bricklayers and their labourers lose much time by frost and want of employment. They do not generally save any money when in work, but trust to charitable subscriptions and to credit, and when employed to pay off their debts. They often marry at eighteen or twenty. HOUSE-PAINTERS. Occasionally the tedium of the journey was relieved by an adventure such as the following :-" In the afternoon, one of our men had a somewhat perilous adventure with a grizzly bear. He saw the animal crouching his huge frame in some willows which skirted the river, and approaching on horseback to There are about 1000 master painters in the metrowithin twenty yards, fired upon him. The bear was polis. The permanent journeymen employed all the only slightly wounded by the shot, and with a fierce year are from 3000 to 4000, and those employed only growl of angry malignity, rushed from his cover, and about seven months in the year are from 6000 to 8000 gave chase. The horse happened to be a slow one, in number. The wages paid to good hands are in and for the distance of half a mile the race was hard summer 4s. 6d. to 5s. a-day, and in winter 4s. to 4s. 6d. contested, the bear frequently approaching so near the Painters now suffer much less than formerly from the terrified animal as to snap at his heels, while the effects of their profession, in consequence of their equally terrified rider who had lost his hat at the greater intelligence and cleanliness. By throwing off start-used whip and spur with the most frantic dili- their soiled clothes, and washing their hands, when gence, frequently looking behind, from an influence done with their work, many lives have been saved. which he could not resist, at his rugged and deter- They are not remarkable for temperance, but this is mined foe, and shrieking in an agony of fear, shoot chiefly owing to the vicious practice of resorting to him, shoot him! The man, who was one of our green-houses of call, which are public-houses, for work. horns, happened to be about a mile behind the main body, either from the indolence of his horse, or his own carelessness; but as he approached the party in his desperate flight, and his lugubrious cries reached the ears of the men in front, about a dozen of them rode to his assistance, and soon succeeded in diverting the attention of his pertinacious foe. After he had received the contents of all the guns, he fell, and was soon dispatched. The man rode in among his fellows, pale and haggard from overwrought feelings, and was probably effectually cured of a propensity for meddling with grizzly bears." Their occupation is favourable to the exercise of the TAILORS. The tailors in shops usually work twelve hours a-day, beyond the time employed for meals. The In proceeding through the hilly district within the larger part now work by the piece; when thus emRocky Mountain ranges, a party of nine men were ployed, a few gain 368. a-week, but some gain only detached on a trapping excursion, with orders to join 30s., others 25s., and old men 20s. When working by the main body at the fort on the Columbia in the en-time, the payment is 6d. per hour. Not many are in suing winter. The cavalcade was now reduced to constant employment. Men working at home get seventeen men, who continued their perilous route their wives to assist them. The earnings of wives towards the north-west for about a fortnight. On may be equal to 98. a-week, and about half the trade the 2d of September, after a toilsome march through have wives able to earn this sum. The tailors belongravines and gullies, they had the inexpressible pleasure ing to societies are estimated at 3000 in number. of seeing the noble Columbia burst at once upon their view. "I could scarcely repress a loud exclamation of delight and pleasure as I gazed upon the magnificent river, flowing silently and majestically on, and reflected that I had actually crossed the vast American continent, and now stood upon a stream that poured its waters directly into the Pacific. This, then, was There are tailors called sweaters, who are thus described :-" A sweater will fit up a room as a workshop, and will employ women and boys, perhaps a dozen, to work for him. He takes home the clothes, and on the Saturday he draws the money for them, and he pays his work-people at what rate he may have bargained, altogether without reference to the Then they do not come to your shop to work?— No, that is against their laws. I dare not keep a man at my shop to work for me; they would all strike if I did. Do they annoy you much with strikes -I am not master of my own shop; they keep me quite under slavery to their rules. Are there many steady men amongst them ?-I never knew a dozen steady stable men amongst them in my life. Do they keep their families comfortably?— Any thing but that. Their families are in a filthy, abominable state; all in dirt, and wretched. How do they manage when they are out of work! Any way they can; they must try to live upon credit; sometimes they pick up a little job. One man out of work, and who has no money, will meet an old shopmate who has money, and they go drinking together, and the man who has money pays for both. Then they must often be in distress -Very often ; half of them have not a feather to fly with. They drink a monstrous deal. Hardly a steady man the taproom to pawn, or even his shoes, in order to amongst them. A man will send out his coat from get money to keep up the fuddle. Their money is generally gone by Monday night, I presume?-It very seldom lasts out the Sabbath day; it is spent at the public-house. Only go and see them at the Lion, in Pearl-row, Blackfriars' Road. Not one in ten goes to a place of worship. By Monday they will be coming to the shop a-kicking, as they call it, that is, borrowing on account of their wages which fall due on the Saturday night. One man will say, Master, let me have a shilling; another will say, Let me have two shillings; and that is the way they go on. There was a man to whom I had to pay last Saturday only 6s. 6d. He might have earned good wages if he had stuck to it; but he earned last week only 168., and he had had 9s. 6d. on account. He is not exactly a drunkard; he is a coffee-shop frequenter. He will sit all day in the coffee-shop over twopenn'orth of coffee. He is a great politician and a great radical, and talks wonderfully about the affairs of the nation. There must be some prudent men amongst them? If there be, I do not know where to find them. I once employed a man who came from the city. He was an excellent workman; he suited me exceedingly well, and I wished to serve him. He removed to near me, and I went to see him one day about some work. There was he, sitting on a heap of straw in the corner of his room, and never a bit of stick or furniture was there in that room, but the man and the heap of straw. He told me of his misfortunes, and I took pity on him, and got him a rug and fire-irons, and a bit of a carpet, and a bed and a mattrass, and an old table and chair or two, and made the place comfortable and Christian-like. About a month after, I called at his place again. There was he, sitting at work in the corner of the room on the straw; every stick was gone; he had sold every thing, and turned it into drink. There is not such a drunken set as these fellows in the world. And these men make laws to rule you?-Ay, to be sure they do. They hold a meeting of their union, and fix their prices; and one or two of them will afterwards come into my shop and throw down a bit of paper, saying, Sir, these are the regulations that we have come to. I soon see what it is; they have raised the price. say to them, I cannot pay these wages; the trade cannot afford it. They say, Well, you will take your time to think on it; we cannot work for any less; and away they go; and if I do not comply, never a man can I get to work for me. They are all bad alike. Have they never suffered by their strikes and unions? The trade has suffered sadly, but they are none the better. About thirty years ago, the shoes sold in the shops were all made in London; but the fellows raised their prices, so that the masters could not give it. That set employers a-thinking of cutting out their boots and shoes, and sending them down to Northampton to be made. They got them done there for little more than half the money, so the men lost all that work; but yet you see they are now just such a set of fellows as I have told you." BAKERS. The wages and employment of bakers differ in different parts of the metropolis. Foremen are generally paid from 20s. to 26s. per week; in addition to which, they are allowed to eat what bread and potatoes they please at the bakehouse, and they take home a quartern loaf a-day, and on the Saturday night half a quartern of flour, to their families. A second class of bakers are paid from 16s. to 18s., and have the same allowances of bread and flour as just stated. The following is the course of work in a district in the eastern part of the metropolis, in a bakehouse where only two journeymen are employed:-"They come at 11 o'clock at night, make the dough and light the furnace; this occupies an hour. One of the two may then lie down to sleep for two hours and a half; the other also may rest himself, but must occasionally open his eyes, to see that the furnace does not go out. At half-past two both men go to work; they throw out the dough, scale it off, that is, weigh it off in suitable portions for the loaves; they work the dough, and put it into the oven; this occupies till about five. The men now lie down again to rest. At seven they draw the bread out of the oven, and put it into the shop; they then prepare the fermentation for next day. At eight they go to breakfast, which occupies from three quarters of an hour to an hour. After breakfast there may be a second batch of bread to draw, if the master have sufficient business. At two o'clock they may go home; one returns at five, and the other at eleven at night." It is a matter of notoriety that the bakers as a body are much given to intoxication. The leisure time which they have from five till eleven at night, exposes them to the temptation of going to public houses to fill up their time. When the trades' unions marched from Copenhagen-fields to Kennington, the bakers were remarked to be the least respectable in appearance of the whole. We may afterwards extend these extracts; in the meanwhile, we conclude with the single remark, that much of the misery of the working-classes in the metropolis, as elsewhere, appears to arise from the practice of resorting to public-houses to spend their leisure time. In this they are to be more pitied than blamed; for society provides no public amusements of a harmless and entertaining kind for the relaxation and improvement of the humbler orders. THE OLD FORTUNE-TELLER. THERE is not, perhaps, a single little town in all France, which does not possess its professional fortuneteller, a person who lives by card-reading, and by the predicting of all that is good and happy for those who desire thus to learn their destiny. This card-prophet is usually, or rather uniformly, a woman, the sex having had no rivals in this department since the days of the astrologers-who, after all, were but a parcel of old women. Of course, too, the fortune-teller is advanced in years, and has all the ordinary witch-like attributes of face and figure. Though every person possessing any pretensions to sense or education would blush to admit openly that he or she ascribed any weight to such magical pretences, yet it is amazing how many people of the better classes, in these small French towns, fee the old fortune-teller, at one period or other of their lives, to unravel some knotty point in their destiny. To do them justice, such references may be made, rather from a conviction of the fortune-teller's general shrewdness, and of the care she takes to acquire all possible information about her neighbours in the ordinary way, than from any trust in her powers of obtaining knowledge by supernatural means. But it is unnecessary either to give explanations, or make apologies, on this subject. The matter in hand is to tell a little story-a story of real life and to that we come without more delay. Once on a time I was invited to spend some weeks with a friend, at a town not a thousand miles from Paris. My friend was married. I had calculated on this circumstance as likely to be troublesome, seeing that it might interfere with the bachelor luxuries of cigar-smoking and unrestrained chat; but my friend's wife was so charming a woman, that I soon decided things to be better as they were. She doated upon her husband, and he was not behind in reciprocating the feeling. They had two pretty children, whose smiling faces and delightful prattle would have made any one envy the parents. To the pleasure derived from the society of my host and hostess, was added the entertainment arising from an occasional reunion of all the magnates of the place, around the hospitable board of my friend. It was an agreeable task for one sated with the gloss and refinement of city life, to study the characters of these comparatively unsophisticated mortals, and to listen to their simple sentiments and views on topics brought accidentally before them. Fortune-telling became the subject of our converse one evening. The mayor of the town, who chanced to be present, and who thought it befitting his office to seem as wise and enlightened as possible, gave us a descant on the folly of such superstitious practices. He called divination by cards, and palmistry, a remnant of the barbarism of the middle ages, and altogether unworthy the illumination of modern days. The schoolmaster and notary of the town, as in duty bound, thought as the mayor did. In fact, nobody dissented from the venerable truisms of the worthy gentleman. Flushed with his triumph, the mayor turned to our hostess, and continued confidently, "I am sure, madam, you have never had recourse to fortune-telling." I had noticed something like a smile on the lady's lips during the harangue of the mayor. The smile now became marked and undeniable, and on her husband's lips there played a similar expression, as the two glanced at each other in obvious intelligence. “Yes, sir," said our hostess at length, replying to the mayor, "I have had recourse ere now to fortune-telling." She again looked at her husband, and it was plain that some pleasant reminiscence was embodied in the glance. They reciprocally held out their hands, and my friend pressed and kissed that of his wife. These signs of mutual feeling did not pass unnoticed by any member of the assembled company. Seeing their faces full of inquiring interest, the lady continued-"I observe you are all surprised. But there is nothing extraordinary in the matter. Listen, and you shall judge." She then told as follows :-"My marriage with Alphonse [her husband] was nearly arranged. Inclination, parental consent, and, in short, every favouring circumstance, were on the side of our union. Alphonse had the free entry of my father's house, and we had leave to see each other, to talk together, and to walk together. All went on pleasingly, till one fine day Monsieur Alphonse chose to assume a cold look, to speak in monosyllables, and, in place of calling me Anna, to call me Ma'inselle. I wept the whole night after. To what cause to attribute this sudden coldness, I knew not. I was in despair; but, too proud to seek an explanation, I concealed my uneasiness, and even affected unusual gaiety before my lover. Poor Alphonse! I have since learned what he suffered, but indeed I might have known it pretty well at first, from a consciousness of my own tortures. Monsieur Alphonse, it seemed, was jealous; jealous of one of my cousins, a student, who came from Saint Cyr to pass a few days of his vacation beside us. This youth had taken the liberty of saluting me, and perhaps of once or twice putting his arm around me. Alphonse was neglected one whole day for the little cousin. Doubtless,' thought the former, this cousin is preferred. As for me, the marriage with which I am to be honoured is plainly but a matter of convenience, and heaven knows what my fate may be afterwards. Hence the frozen aspect, the Othello-like visage of Monsieur Alphonse, and my assumed gaiety seemed but to prove and crown my perfidy. He felt himself bound to quit such an ingrate, to banish from his heart a love so unworthy. Let her go and marry this cousin of hers, thought he, since she will not even give herself the trouble of dissimulating before me. As for himself, he would go abroad; nothing like travelling for banishing the recollection of an unfortunate love. While Alphonse was occupied with these thoughts, all at once an idea struck him-he would go and consult the old woman, the fortune-teller. Without giving himself time to reflect either on the utility or inutility, the wisdom or the folly, of such a step, his restless impatience led him to run to the dwelling of the old fortune-teller. He waited not to knock at the door, but entered, and mounted the steps to the wise woman's attic by threes and fours at a time. The card-prophetess was at the moment engaged with a young girl, and both of them were so entirely absorbed with the matter in hand, that neither of them perceived or heard the approach of the new visitor. The chamber of the sorceress was dark and gloomy. Alphonse placed himself in a corner to observe what passed. The old woman was looking attentively at the girl before her, and examining now and then the lines of her visitor's hand. Then she placed her hand over the girl's heart, and a card was drawn. The meaning of this card, as apparent to her wonder-seeing eyes, was as follows (the old woman spoke the oracle aloud) :-' At this moment you have a great trouble oppressing you, which would cease if you dared to speak; but you have a lucky star, and the person who causes your uneasiness will soon see his error and atone for it.' 'Oh, my good mother,' cried the girl, can this be true? How have you guessed my trouble? Read it again to me.' The old woman did as she was desired. Oh, if this be true,' cried the girl, shedding tears in abundance, how happy you have made me, mother, by giving me this hope! Here is some recompense for you. At the same time she drew from her purse a piece of several francs, and having given it to the fortune-teller, turned round to depart, wiping the joyful tears from her eyes, and murmuring, Dear Alphonse! he will yet be mine!' But Anna (for you may guess that it was I)," said our hostess, blushing divinely at the recollection of the weaknesses into which she had been led by her youthful passion, "Anna started, and uttered a cry of surprise on meeting Alphonse face to face. How? said she, have you followed me hither? or have you, too, come to hear- "Yes,' said Alphonse, in a voice more tender than I had ever heard it before; yes, my Anna, my angel, I came to learn my fortune, but you have fixed the fate of both. Pardon melove is suspicious.' 'I told you this,' said the fortuneteller triumphantly; the cards never fail.' Alphonse and I came away together, more attached to one another than ever. Alphonse explained the affair of the cousin, and I wondered that he could have been disturbed by such a trifle. But I took care that no trifle of the same kind should ever occur to disturb him again. This is our story; and this, Monsieur le Maire, was the occasion on which I had recourse to fortune-telling. You see that it may sometimes lead to a happy issue, though not perhaps in the very way that may be pretended by its professors. The old woman still lives, hard by, and the mayor may perhaps find a good wife by consulting her.” This remark suggested an idea to me. "Come," said I, "let us all go and see this wonderful woman, and hear what she has to promise to each of us." The mayor, mindful of his eloquent tirade, was alone disposed to demur to the proposition. He muttered acthing about the "gravity of his office," but every body promised to keep the matter secret, and curiosity led the worthy magistrate at length to forget that the middle ages were past, and to go with the rest. The sorceress received the whole party of us politely, and bent on us a pair of as quick and searching eyes as ever shone in human head. The mayor tried the cards. They announced to him that he was to lose his place at the next municipal elections. [When they came, he was kicked out.] The notary's jolly red face grew rather lengthy when it was foretold to him that a paralysis would by and bye unfit his fingers for holding the pen of office. [The poor notary was ere long obliged to resign his place for this very cause.] In short, the old prophetess, with the most consummate coolness, gave every one of us in turn something to look forward to, of much the same pleasing character as the preceding predictions. No doubt the old gipsy thought that such a band could only come to mock her, and was resolved to turn the tables upon us, and she succeeded to admiration. Like all fortune-tellers, a large share of natural shrewdness, private knowledge of facts, and a desire to please her customers, formed the "sole witchcraft which she had used." NEW VOLUME OF TABLE-TALK. A LITTLE Volume, entitled "Delicia Literariæ, a New Volume of Table-Talk," has lately been published in Edinburgh,* being the first volume of the kind, we believe, which has been produced in our country. It is evidently the composition of a man of extensive and curious reading, much accuracy, and no small amount of taste and acumen. We select from it the following article on a subject which we ourselves once partially treated FOOT-PRINTS IN ROCKS AND STONES. The similarity or the identity of the superstitions of nations has recently attracted considerable attention. Many books on the subject have appeared on the continent, and a few in our own land, among which the pleasing works of Mr Keightley deserve prominent notice. He alludes to "the marks which natural causes have impressed on the solid and unyielding granite rock, but which, according to the popular creed, were produced by the contact of the hero, the saint, or the god." I have collected some instances of the almost universal diffusion of this superstition. We meet it in every district of Scotland, at Maidenkirk and beyond John-o'-Groat's. According to old Andrew Symson, "Kirkmaiden in Galloway is so called, because the kirk is dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the print of whose knee is fabulously reported to be seen on a stone, where she prayed somewhere about a place in this parish called Mary Port, near to which place there was a chapel long since, but now wholly ruined." In our Lady's Kirk in South Ronaldsha, in Orkney, Brand saw "a stone lying, about four feet long and two feet broad, but narrower and round at the two ends; upon the surface of which stone is the print of two feet, concerning which the superstitious people have a tradition that Saint Magnus, when he could not get a boat on a time to carry him over Pightland Firth, took this stone, and setting his feet thereupon, passed the firth safely, and left this stone in this church, which hath continued here ever since." tin adds, that "others have this more reasonable opinion, that it has been used in time of Popery for delinquents, who were obliged to stand barefoot upon it by way of penance." The Reverend George Forbes, in the Statistical Account of the Parish of Leochel in Mar, informs us that "the castle of Corse, now in ruins, was built in 1581 by William Forbes, father of Patrick Forbes, bishop of Aberdeen. Tradition bears, and the common people still believe, that the devil visited the bishop in this castle; that they differed [quarrelled]; and that the devil on his departure carried away with him the broad side of the castle, on the stone stairs whereof they still pretend to point out his footsteps." In describing the vitrified site of the Mar Top of Noth in Strathbogie, Dr Hibbert speaks of "a lofty upright stone on the westerly flank of the hill, connected with which is a monstrous traditional story of its having been placed there by a giant, the print of whose heel in it is still visible." In Stratherne, the marks of Saint Fillan's knees are shown in a rock on which he used to kneel in his frequent devotions. In Glenalmond tourists are taken to see "a stone on which are the marks of people's feet, and the hoofs of horses, cows, and sheep." And a ballad of Galloway assures us, that "Tho' the Brownie o' Blednoch lang be gane, The popular legend of the building of Stonehenge shows that a similar superstitious belief maintains in England. In Wales, during the last century, they showed, says the Reverend John Price, in his account of Holy head in Anglesey," the print of Kybi's foot in a rock by the east end of the chancel, till it was lately destroyed by Mr Ellis, fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, then curate of this place." at Damascus, tend equally to prove its great anti-thank me for ridding you of this pestilent fellow. He quity." might have undermined your innocence." Of all these foot-prints the most famous by far is that of Adam in Ceylon. A description of it is given by Robert Knox, who was nearly twenty years a prisoner in the country, of which he published an account at London in 1681. "On the south side of Conde Uda," he says, " is a hill supposed to be the highest on this island, called, in the Chingulay language, Hamalell, but by the Portuguese and the European natives, Adam's Peak. It is sharp like a sugar-loaf, and on the top is a flat stone with the print of a foot like a man's on it, but far bigger, being about two feet long. The people of this land count it meritorious to go and worship this impression; and generally about their new year, which is in March, men, women, and children, go up this vast and high mountain to worship." The print of the foot is supposed to be that of Buddha, which he left when ascending to heaven. He has no temple on this mountain according to Knox, but " unto this footstep they give worship, light up lamps, and offer sacrifices, laying them Ireland is fertile in monuments of this kind. Mr upon it as upon an altar." There was in Knox's time Crofton Croker narrates the legend of Clough-na- a tree in the north of the island, which was annually Cuddy, "a stone in Lord Kenmare's park at Killarney, resorted to at the same time with the footstep, and impressed with the mark of Father Cuddy's knees.' was held in equal honour: it was said to have flown The same sprightly gentleman describes the Clough-a-over from the mainland, and to have planted itself: Regaun near Limerick, "That stone is far taller than when Buddha was on earth, he loved to sit under its the tallest man, and the power of forty men would fail branches. to move it from the spot where it fell. Deeply imColonel Syme met more than one of these monuprinted in it are still to be seen the marks of the fingers ments in Ava. "In the course of our walks," he says, of the hag Grana." "not the least curious object that presented itself was a flat stone of coarse grey granite, laid horizontally on a pedestal of masonry six feet long and three feet wide, protected from the weather by a wooden shed. This stone, like that of Pouoodang, was said to bear the genuine print of the foot of Guadma; and we were informed that a similar impression is to be seen on a large rock situated between two hills one day's journey west of Memboo.” In Scandinavia is a rock on which may be traced the large footsteps of Olaf Tryggvason, as plainly as if he had trodden on the newly fallen snow. In Germany there is such another rock at Heidelberg, as a friend informs me; a second near Vienna; and a third somewhere on the Danube. In Italy, near the monastery of Vallambrosa, is a stone, on which is the figure of Saint John Gualbert, the founder of the religious order of Vallis Umbrosa. Near the town of Boukhtarma, on the Irtisch, in The legend is, that while the saint was praying on the Western Siberia, Captain Cochrane accompanied his top of a neighbouring precipice, he was seized by the guide "to view what was deemed an object of curiosity devil and cast down on a rock with such violence, that in that part of the world. It was a large stone near it was impressed with the mark of his body. This the bank of the river, on which are imprinted the incident seems to have escaped the Reverend Mr But-marks of the feet of a man and of a horse; they are ler's notice according to him, the monk having most in a perfect state, and to all appearance have been devoutly received the last sacraments, died happily on formed by nature. The heels are towards the river, the 12th of July 1073, being seventy-four years old. the feet of the man in advance of those of the horse, Captain Slidel saw in the cathedral of Toledo in very well representing the situation of a man holding Spain a stone on which it is said the Blessed Virgin the horse. I could gather nothing of its origin beyond alighted, and which retains the impression of her feet, the silly tradition of the place." although now much worn by the hands of the faithful, who touch it with the ends of their fingers when grieved by disease or affliction. In France, at the church of Saint Radegonde in Poitou, is a stone which bears the print of our Saviour's foot. In the same district is another, on which the mare of Saint Jouin indented her hoof one day when her holy rider was sorely vexed by the devil. That respectable personage himself has left the prints of the soles of his feet, and of his hinder parts, on a rock near Hambert in Maine; and in the department of Charente is a rock bearing the mark of the slipper of Saint Mary Magdalen. Of all the countries on the earth, Palestine has the richest store of such relics. In the mosque of Saint Omar at Jerusalem, is a stone bearing the print of the angel Gabriel's fingers, and the prophet Mahomet's foot; and in the church which crowns the Mount of Olives, is preserved a fragment of rock imprinted with the mark of our Saviour's foot while in the act of ascension. Sir John Mandeville describes many others --such as a rock on Mount Sinai impressed with the figure of Moses; a rock in the valley of Jehoshaphat retaining the footsteps of the ass on which Christ rode into Jerusalem; a rock at Gethsemane marked with the print of His hand; and a rock near Nazareth imprinted with His footsteps. Travellers in the seventeenth century were shown in Jerusalem "the house of Annas, where our Saviour being hurried with violence down a steep place, to prevent falling He laid hold of the corner of a wall, where there is a place in one of the stones fit for a man's hand, which the monks think a great miracle; and Simon the Pharisee's house, where there is a stone with the print of a foot which they say our Saviour made when He stood to pardon Mary Magdalen her sins; and St Stephen's gate, and, a little out of the city, the place where Stephen was stoned and the monks fancy that there is the print of his hands, face, and knees when he fell down." Ibn Batuta, an Arabian traveller of the fourteenth century, says, that "outside of Damascus on the way of the pilgrimage is the Mosque of the Foot, which is held in great estimation, and in which is preserved a stone, having upon it the print of the foot of Moses. In this mosque they offer up prayers in times of distress." Mr Cooley remarks on this passage, that "the stone bearing the impression of a foot merits some consideration. Monuments of this kind are generally supposed to be remains of Budhaïsm; yet it is possible, though they seem at present to belong properly to that religion, that they may have claims to a much higher antiquity. The mark of a foot, seen by Herodotus near the river Tyras, was ascribed to Hercules. A similar impression in Ceylon, or among the Burmese, would be called the foot of Buddha: in Damascus it was thought to be the foot of Moses. The great distance between the countries in which this singular sort of monument has been found, and its existence I have mislaid a reference to the volume in which the foot-print is described of a god worshipped in one of the islands of the Pacific Ocean; but two instances may be cited of the existence of the superstition in the New World. Dr Benjamin Smith Barton, in a tract on American Antiquities published about 1783, quotes the work of Mr Kalm, a traveller in Canada, who saw, "in two or three places, at a considerable distance from each other, impressions of the feet of grown people and children in a rock." And Mr Jefferson, in his Notes on Virginia, written in 1781, recites an Indian "tradition handed down from their fathers, that in ancient times a herd of Mammoths came to the Big-bone-licks on the river Ohio, and began an universal destruction of the bear, deer, elk, buffalo, and other animals which had been created for the use of the Indians: that the Great Man above (so they call their chief Deity), looking down and seeing this, was so enraged that he seized his lightning, descended on the earth, seated himself on a neighbouring mountain on a rock, on which his seat and the prints of his feet are still to be seen, and hurled his bolts among them till the whole were slaughtered except the big bull, who, presenting his forehead to the shafts, shook them off as they fell, but missing one at length, it wounded him in the side, whereon springing round, he bounded over the Ohio, over the Wabash, the Illinois, and finally over the great lakes, where he is living at this day." WITTY JUDGMENTS OF THE DUKE OF OSSUNNA. This THE Duke of Ossunna, viceroy at Naples for the king of Spain, to whom the Neapolitan territory was then subject, acquired great celebrity for the tact and wisdom of the judgments he delivered. nobleman, on visiting the galleys one festival day for the purpose of liberating a captive, according to use and wont, found all the prisoners loud in asserting their innocence. One declared that his condemnation was the work of enemies; another asserted that he had been informally and unjustly convicted; a third declared that he had been mistaken for another person; and so on. All declared themselves guiltless as cradled babes. At last the duke came to one man who took a very different tone-"I do not believe, my noble lord," said he, "that there is a greater rascal in all Naples than myself. They were too lenient with me to send me to the galleys." The duke, hearing these words, turned immediately round to the keeper of the galleys, and exclaimed, "Loose this scoundrel's chain, and turn him immediately about his business. If he is allowed to stay, he will certainly corrupt these honest, innocent men here. Take him away." While his orders were being obeyed, he wheeled round to the other captives, and said to them, with the most civil air imaginable, "Gentlemen, I have no doubt you will The Duke of Ossunna was somewhat like Haroun Alraschid, a little despotical even in his good doings. Ferromelle, a rich merchant of Naples, whose predominant passion was avarice, chanced to lose an em broidered purse, containing fifty golden ducats, fifty Spanish pistoles, and a ring of the value of a thousand crowns. This loss vexed him grievously, and he caused a proclamation to be made, offering fifty Spanish pistoles to any one who should restore the missing articles. An old woman found the purse, and brought it to the owner. Ferromelle, as soon as he saw his property, could not withstand the temptation of trying to avoid payment of part of the reward. In counting the fifty pistoles, he dexterously laid aside thirty, and said to the finder, "I promised fifty pistoles to whoever found the purse. Thirty have been taken out of it already by you; here are the other twenty, and so you are paid." The old woman remonstrated in vain against this treatment, but she would probably have remained content with her twenty pistoles, had not some one advised her to apply for justice to the Duke of Ossunna. The duke knew the man well, and sent for him. “Is there any likelihood," said he to Ferromelle," that this old woman, who had the honesty to bring you the purse when she might have taken all, would be guilty of taking your thirty pistoles? No, no. The truth is, the purse cannot be yours. Your purse had fifty pistoles, and this had but thirty. The purse cannot be yours. The merchant stammered out, "My lord, I know the purse, the ducats, the ring"- "Nonsense!" exclaimed the duke; "do you think there never was a purse, or ducats, or a ring, like yours? Here, good woman," continued he, addressing the old woman, "take you the purse, and its contents. It cannot be this good gentleman's, since he says his had fifty pistoles." This judgment was enforced. The duke might have been morally certain of the miser's attempt to cheat, but, as has been said, this was a very HarounAlraschid-like kind of a decision. The duke had one day to hear the case of Bertrand de Sols, a proud Spanish gentleman, who was in the habit of walking in the streets with his head elevated like a cameleopard's. While thus marching, a porter, carrying a heavy load, had run against him, but not without first crying "Beware!" which is the ordinary mode of giving warning in such cases. The porter's load consisted of fagots, and one of them fell off in the concussion, and tore the Spaniard's silk mantle. He was mightily enraged, and sought redress from the viceroy. The duke knew that porters usually cry "Beware," and having seen the porter in this case, he learned that he had cried the word, though de Sols avouched the contrary. The duke advised the porter to declare himself dumb when the cause came for judgment. The porter did so through a friend, and the duke immediately said to de Sols, "what can I do to this poor fellow? You see he is dumb." Forgetting himself, the enraged Spaniard cried out, "Don't believe the scoundrel, my lord; I myself heard him cry "Beware!" " "Why, then, did you not beware?" replied the duke, and he made the mortified Spaniard pay all expenses, and a fine to the poor. GEMS FROM THE CLD ENGLISH POETS. Celestial sphere, So rich with jewels hung, that night Into so small a character, Remov'd far from our human sight; But if we steadfast look We shall discern In it, as in some holy book, How man may heavenly knowledge learn. That far-stretched power, Yet undiscovered issue forth, May be let out to scourge his sin, For as yourselves your empires fall, LONDON: Published, with permission of the proprietors, by W.S ORR, Paternoster Row; and sold by all booksellers and newsmen.-Printed by Bradbury and Evans, Whitefriars. CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF "CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE," "CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE," &c. NUMBER 427. MISANTHROPY. MISANTHROPY, or that state in which one individual out of the mass of mankind presumes to hate and despise all the rest, may arise from various causes, and may take possession of minds constitutionally a good deal different from each other; but we are prepared to contend that all minds in which it is considerably developed, must agree in one essential point. One of the circumstances which we most frequently see producing misanthropy, is personal deformity. A slight malformation of one limb is now believed to have been the chief source of this feeling in Byron. He shrunk from human society because the calf of his right leg was a little shrunk, and the heel a little raised off the ground, so that he appeared slightly inferior to other people. It was this ever-present sense of a trifling and merely bodily defect which gave so strange a tinge to his life and poetry. He could not endure mankind as a mass, because they for the most part had calves exactly of a match, and limbs strictly equal in length. But if so small a personal blemish made the great poet misanthropical, how much more misanthropical ought all persons to be whose fate it has been to be still more deformed! Those, for instance, who want limbs altogether, or have them hopelessly crooked and shrunk up, so as to be of no use, ought to hate mankind ten times more than Byron did. Many, however, who are thus miserably deformed, do not appear in the least misanthropical, but, on the contrary, are remarkable for very great kindliness of nature. The explanation of this seeming contradiction is, that the immediate cause of the misanthropy in Byron was, not his shrunk leg, but the pride which made him anxious to have as good legs as his neighbours. He was a man of great self-esteem, as we may readily discover in many other parts of his story; and this it was which chafed and fretted him under a small natural evil, which banished him from the common haunts of his kind, and prompted that strain of morbid feeling which runs through the whole of. his writings. The deformity was only the remote cause, and, with a man of different nature-as with Scott, for example, whose lameness was greater, but who had little self-esteem-it might have had a very different effect, or none at all. If we carefully examine other cases of misanthropy, where it seems to arise from deformity, we shall generally find reason to conclude that self-esteem is also present, and is the immediately operating cause. From all that we know of Richard III., it is clear that he possessed great self-esteem: he could not have otherwise been so ambitious. In the dwarf whom Scott took up and idealised in one of his tales, selfesteem could be traced as the direct and immediate cause of the misanthropy which possessed him: he not only wished to live, but he desired even to be buried, apart from the common herd of men, whom he regarded as mere rubbish. Proverbial wisdom speaks of the ill-nature of cripples, and fiction usually represents them as malignant and misanthropical; altogether overlooking the fact that many cripples are persons of extremely sweet and placid nature. To be strictly correct, we should say, and fiction should assume, that a cripple with much self-esteem is apt to be cankered, but that a modest man may scarcely have the general appearance of a human being, and yet be a great lover of his kind. Misanthropy, again, often seems to spring from disappointments in life. One who entered the world under favourable circumstances, and with high hopes, finds in time that his efforts have been in a great measure in vain. His talents have not been appreciated; his friends have not supported him as they ought to SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 1840. have done; he has, in short, failed to advance, while many whom he believed to be inferior to himself have been greatly encouraged, and are now in high, but, as he thinks, ill-deserved places. Now, what is the misanthropy of such a man but wounded self-esteem? The modest man who fails, sits down quietly with his disappointment, and is ready to believe that his fellow-creatures have encouraged the right men. He is in no danger of becoming a misanthrope. Or we shall suppose another very common case. A man long prosperous, and surrounded, as the prosperous usually are, with friends, experiences a sudden reverse, which makes him a poor man. He has been remarkable, in the day of his good fortune, for an uncalculating liberality, and his house has for years been the scene of social enjoyment. But now he no more finds himself in the situation of a hospitable and admired landlord. The visits which he receives are chiefly of a melancholy and admonitory kind. He is not asked so much into company as he was. He finds, indeed, that he is now in a totally different sphere from what he lately occupied. Instead of exerting himself in his own behalf, he waits in some vague expectation that his friends are to behave the same to him as ever; and when he at length finds that this hope is fallacious, he begins to speak of the perfidy of mankind, their selfishness, and how little old friendship is regarded. Now, the misanthropy into which this man ultimately falls, is a pure emanation of self-esteem. Without this sentiment very active in his nature, he could never have supposed himself a person of such consequence, or his late entertainments a matter of so much obligation, that his fellow-creatures were to be expected to do so much in his behalf. Literature is ridiculously full of allusions to summer friends, and in "Timon of Athens" we have an absolute fool and prodigal becoming a misanthrope, because the parasites on whom he had spent his substance refuse to succour him in the time of his distress. The real truth is, that, wherever intimacy has been attended with mutual esteem, and the unfortunate party makes the vigorous efforts which he ought to do to retrieve his circumstances, it rarely happens that sympathy and aid are withheld. The point on which the whole matter turns is selfesteem. The modest man submits to his fate, and chiefly looks to himself for the means of improving it. The proud man thinks that the world ought to come to his feet, and, when it does not come, as it never does to any, he becomes a misanthrope. Turn misanthropy, indeed, as we will, we shall find self-esteem at the bottom of it. Take any man who is possessed by this dismal sentiment, and you must find, that either there is a difference between the real appearance of his person and what he wishes his person to be, or that his endowments of mind are not such as to command all the homage which he wishes, or that he has not got what he thinks his deserts in the distribution of the gifts of fortune, or that mankind have in some way failed to do for him all which he thinks he deserves at their hands. Taking the feeling quite abstractedly, it implies in its very nature an overweening self-esteem. By the misanthrope, mankind are described as knaves and fools-a set of beings deserving nothing but hatred and contempt. He always excepts himself. All but I are wretches this is the formula of his belief. Now, what is there in any man to entitle him to think that he alone, of all who live, is honest, or worthy, or enlightened, or of correct judgment? He is born a member of the race; he has all their lineaments in body and mind, all their wants, and he goes on towards the same inevitable fate. Truly it would be a strange chance which should have made all bad but HE! PRICE THREE HALFPENCE. We present these views in an emphatic manner, because misanthropy is a vice of by no means unfrequent occurrence, and one which it is desirable to keep down by all right means. Wherever it takes root, it brings with it a blight, both to the character of the individual himself and to all around him. If we shall have succeeded in warning any one against it by an exposition of the sordid basis on which it always rests, our object will have been accomplished. CHANGES OF LEVEL IN THE EARTH'S SURFACE. WITHIN the last few years, a number of observations have been made respecting changes of level in the earth's surface, with which it seems to us possible that we may interest in some degree the imaginations, at the same time that we are instructing the minds, of our readers. The attention of scientific men was first drawn in a decided manner to this subject, by a remarkable occurrence which took place in Chili, on the west coast of South America, in 1822. On the morning of the 20th of November of that year-a widely felt and destructive earthquake having taken place the day before-it was discovered that a broad line of seabeach, for more than a hundred miles along the coast, had been deserted by the sea and left dry. Much of this tract was covered by shell-fish, which, being unrefreshed by the sea, and therefore soon dying, exhaled the most offensive effluvia. Between the old low-water mark and the new one, the fishermen found burrowing shells, which they had formerly had to search for amidst the surf. Rocks a little way out to sea, and formerly covered, were now laid dry at half ebb tide. In short, it was evident from many circumstances that a large addition had been made to the dry land. The country people imagined that the sea had retired from the land and sunk below its former levela notion of the same kind with that which a child has respecting the hedges which he sees flying past him when he first travels in the inside of a coach. The real state of the case was a rise of the land. It had risen at Valparaiso three, and at Quintero four feet. It was also observed that the water-course of a mill, about a mile inland from the sea, had gained a fall of fourteen inches in little more than a hundred yards, and it was hence inferred that the rise was greater in some parts of the inland country than on the coast. Chili is a long narrow country sloping from the Andes to the sea: over a great part of it, from the foot of the mountains to some distance under the sea, a rise is supposed to have taken place, and the average of that rise is believed to have been about five feet. That the rise was of the nature of a swell from a centre below, and not a general and equable elevation, seemed to be proved by the numerous cracks which had taken place in the granitic rock forming the basis of a large part of the country. The cause of the rise is generally surmised to have been connected with the volcanic matter which is supposed to be constantly working at no great distance beneath the surface of the South American continent, and for a considerable way under the sea to the westward. Calculations have been formed as to the quantity of solid matter which was on this occasion elevated above the former level: it has been estimated as equal to a mass of fifty-seven cubic miles, or about the size of Mount Etna; and it is supposed that the Ganges, which annually carries down mud into the sea to an amount equal to the bulk of sixty times the great Pyramid, would require seventeen centuries and a half to deposit a mass equal to |