single parish in braid Scotland, more virtuous than was the beautiful wilderness in which thou and I, Tim, learned poetry and religion, to understand and to venerate the liberty of Nature, as it breathed and broke forth from the peasant's heart?

Tickler. Not one. It's own dear self, I fear, is not what it was in that refulgent time

North. Refulgent! Somewhat too strong a word, Timothy; but I must not be too critical

Tickler. Yes-refulgent. And it is by far too weak a word. North. God bless you-it is. Many of its black bright mosses are drained now, they say; and I cannot well deny that no rational objection can be made to the change of heathermoor into clover-meadow ;-thorn-hedges, in pretty circles, and squares, and oblongs, are green and bright now, I am told, where of old not so much as a crumbling grey stone-wall enclosed the naked common; nor in spite of the natural tears shed from the poor widow's eyes, can I for more than a minute at a time seriously lament that deep-uddered kine should now lazily low and browse where ragged sheep did once perseveringly bleat and nibble;-single trees, that seem to have dropped from the sky, so quick their growth, now here and there hang their shadows, I have heard, over the band of reapers at their mid-day meal, where, when our "auld cloak was new," one single sickle sufficed for the sma' barley-rig, and the "solitary lowland lass" had to look for shelter from the sunshine beneath some rock in the desert; and to that change, too, can I conform the feelings of my somewhat saddened heart;-nay, groves and woods, the story goes, have girdled the stony hills where we two used to admire, all brightening by itself, the glorious Rowan-Tree, independent of the sun in its own native lustre; and may never the swinging axe be heard in that sylvan silence, for I confess the superior beauty, too, of the vesture that now decks the sides of those pastoral pyramids ;-the shielings that we used to come upon, like birds' nests, far up near the heads of the glens where the curlew bred among the rushes, have "been a' red awa;" nor is their place, if sought for, to be found in the solitude; and farmhouses, slated too I hear-for thatch, wae's me! is fast falling out of fashion-now stand where no smoke was then seen but the morning mist; and God forbid I should

grieve that suchlike spots as these should have their permanent human dwellings ;-mansions, in which rich men live, from upland swells overlook the low country far as the dimseen spires of towns and cities that divide without diminishing the extent of the Great Plain through which rivers roll; and of a surety pleasant 'tis to think of honest industry finding its reward in well-used wealth, that builds up the stately structure on the site of the cottage where its possessor was born in poverty;-gone, I know, is the old House of God, walls, roof, spire, and all-spire not so tall as its contemporary Pine-Tree, and the heritors have done well in erecting in its stead another larger kirk—with a tower—since they preferred a tower to a spire,-nor could they be wrong in widening the burial-ground, that had become crowded with graves-though methinks they might have preserved, for sake of the memorials sunk far within it, some sacred stones of the south wall;-Oh, Friend of my soul! though all these changes seem to have been from good to better, and some of them such as in the course of time must almost of themselves have taken place, men only letting the laws of Nature have "their own sweet will," yet such is the profound affection I bear to the past, and such the tenderness with which my heart regards all that appertained to the scenes where it first enjoyed all its best emotions, that I could almost weep to think that my beloved parish is not now, even to the knoll of broom and the rill of hazels, in all the self-same place which it was of old, when we walked in it up and down, through all seasons of the year to us equally delightful, as perfectly happy as spirits in Paradise!1

Tickler. North, your picturesque is always pathetic; but now for the practical application.

North. I hate practical applications except in cases of tetanus, a cataplasm to the soles of the feet, of

Tickler. Mustard, and so forth.

North. The virtues which we loved and admired during those happy days, were rooted ineradicably in the characters which sometimes they somewhat severely graced, by the power of causes which had not any alliance, however remote, with

1 This paradise was the parish of the Mearns, near Paisley, with the minister of which (the Rev. Dr George Maclatchie) Professor Wilson was boarded in his early years.

CHEAP PUBLICATIONS.

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those which are now thought, by too many persons, to be of such wondrous efficacy in the formation of right principles and feelings, which, by the by, always grow together, and maintain through life their due proportion. Some of the means which are now so pompously set at apparent work to enlighten the minds of the people, and to emollify their manners (mores), were then never dreamt of, even by the most visionary; and yet their minds were as full of light, and their manners were as full of rurality, or sylvanity, or urbanity, as they will be found to be now with the dwellers in grassy fields, leafy woods, or stony towns.

Tickler. And much more so.

North. Then it will be found, in the long-run, that the attempt to elevate the character of a people by cheap publications is very expensive.

Tickler. Very.

North. A penny-a-week is not, for a poor and industrious man, much to pay to a friendly society; for his condition is always, from within and from without, exceedingly precarious; and 'tis well to guard, at such sacrifice, sometimes no inconsiderable one, against the day in which no man can work. Tickler. Good.

North. A penny paper fills the empty stomach with windor lies in it, in the shape of a ball; and 'tis hard to say which is the worser, flatulence or indigestion.

Tickler. Sometimes, no doubt, the small swallow is harmless, and sometimes even salutary; but, at the best, it cannot give much strength; and, at the end of a year, the money would have been far better bestowed in purchasing some pecks of meal, or half a boll of potatoes

North. Or, ere the winter sets in, linsey-woolsey petticoats for the ditchers' daughters.

Tickler. I doubt if any man, earning wages by ordinary hand-work, ever continued such subscription through a twelvemonth.

North. Never. They almost all give in within the quarter; for they either get angry with themselves, on finding that they are not one whit the wiser from studying the Tatterdemalion— or, growing conceited, they aspire to write for it--and a rejected contributor will not condescend to be an accepted subscriber.

352 CHEAP RELIGION-CHEAP BIRTHS-CHEAP DEATHS.

Tickler. The word "cheap" is never out of some poor creatures' mouths-cheap bread, cheap law, cheap government, cheap religion.

North. Ay, above all things else, they must have cheap religion. They grudge a fair price for heaven.

Tickler. Charity, too, must be cheap. Give such relief to the poor as will just hold soul and body together—and, when they part company, let the dissection of the pauper's carcass pay for its burial.

66

North. Why go to any unnecessary expense on the birth, baptism, death, or funeral of any lump of clay? The most illustrious man-howdie would be munificently rewarded by a guinea, for ushering into existence any man-child that it is possible to conceive; and, for a mere lassie, there ought assuredly to be a drawback. There is something absolutely shocking in the idea of fees to the gentleman in black for making a baby a Christian. If any one thing on this earth ought to be cheap, it should be the marriage ceremony, for marriage itself, in the long run, is apt to prove a most expensive business; and, as interment consists mainly in digging a hole and filling it up again, that surely may be done for a mere nothing, in a country that has been so long overflowed by a ceaseless influx of Irishmen, the best diggers that ever handled spade or shovel. A plain coffin may be made of four rough deals, with a few second-hand nails to hold them together till the box reaches the bottom, and none but a madman would dream of studding it with extravagant brass knobs, bedecking it with a profuse plate of the same metal, and that again with a ruinous inscription, which no eye may read in the dark, so soon to be bedimmed with dark mould and the slime of worms. As for a hearse and six horses, large enough to contain, and strong enough to draw, ten ton of coals, or twenty butts of porter, caparisoned with plumage-and few things are dearer for their weight than feathers-all to convey an emaciated corpse that probably does not ride six stone, though the man might have once walked twenty-why, the custom is at once so preposterous, and so expensive, that the philosopher is at a loss to know whether he ought to laugh at the folly, or to weep at the waste-for his maxim on such matters is, "if it be done at all, let it be done cheaply."

PICTURE OF WORDSWORTH.

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(Enter PETER with rizzers and cigars-he wheels his vener able Master's easy-chair to the accustomed nook, and then places SOUTHSIDE so as to face the good old man-sets before each worthy his own little circular table, with its own Argand lamp-rakes and stirs the fire into a roaring glow-and stumps out, noiselessly closing behind him the double door, that looks like one of the numerous oakpanels of the wall.)

North. Affectionate and faithful creature!

Tickler. Ha! what worthies have we got here over the chimney-piece?

North (smiling). What do you think?

Tickler (with a peculiar face). Wordsworth, with Jeffrey on the one side, and Brougham on the other!

North. How placid and profound the expression of the whole Bard! The face is Miltonic-even to the very eyes; for though, thank Heaven, they are not blind, there is a dimness about the orbs. The temples I remember shaded with thin hair of an indescribable colour, that in the sunlight seemed a kind of mild auburn-but now they are bare,-and-nothing to break it-the height is majestic. No furrows-no wrinkles on that contemplative forehead-the sky is without a cloud"The image of a Poet's soul,

How calm! how tranquil! how serene!"

It faintly smiles. There is light and motion round the lips, as if they were about to "discourse most eloquent music." In my imagination, that mouth is never mute-I hear it

"Murmuring by the living brooks,

A music sweeter than their own."

Tickler. Is he wont so to sit with folded arms?

North. 'Twas not his habit of old, but it may be nowthere seems to my mind much dignity in that repose. He is privileged to sit with folded arms, for all life long those hands have ministered religiously at the shrine of nature and nature's God; and the Priest, as age advances, may take his rest in the sanctuary, a voiceless worshipper. There is goodness in the great man's aspect and while I look, love blends with reveHow bland! The features in themselves are almost stern-but most humane the spirit of the grand assemblage

rence.