Gomersal, with his blue-black unwhiskered cheek, his heavy moustache, his business-like, urgent thumb,-even he is being solemnised and hushed); the trunk pulled out for the poor baby's clothes, secretly prepared at bye-hours by the poor mother; the neatly-mended tear in Mary's frock; the coronet, the slippers, the wand with its glittering star, the nearness of the buzzing multitude; the dignity of death over the whole. We do not know who 'S. H. is, who tells, with his strong simplicity, the story of 'The Queen of the Arena '—it is in the first volume of Once a Week-but we can say nothing less of it than that it is worthy of this woodcut; it must have been true. Here, too, as in all Leech's works, there is a manly sweetness, an overcoming of evil by good, a gentleness that tames the anguish; you find yourself taking off your shoes, and bow as in the presence of the Supreme,-who gives, who takes away,-who restores the lost.1

1 We remember many years ago, in St. Andrews, on the fairday in September, standing before a show, where some wonderful tumbling and music and dancing was being done. It was called by way of The Tempest, a ballet, and Miranda was pirouetting away all glorious with her crown and rouge and tinsel. She was young, with dark, wild, rich eyes and hair, and shapely, tidy limbs. The Master of ceremonies, a big fellow of forty, with an honest, merry face, was urging the young lady to do her best, when suddenly I saw her start, and thought I heard a child's cry in the midst of the rough music. She looked eagerly at the big man, who smiled, made her jump

THE GREAT SOCIAL EVIL.

TIME-MIDNIGHT.

A SKETCH NOT A HUNDRED MILES FROM

THE HAYMARKET.

BELLA-' Ah! Fanny! how long have you been gay?' This, too, tells its own story. It appeared in 1857, and Leech was warned that this was not for Punch-it was too serious. It certainly is serious enough. He was thanked privately by many of the best men and women of England for this terribly true 'tract for the times.' What deepest misery and melancholy! the wind and rain, the wet muddled paint on the cheeks, the weak hopeless mouth, the thin shoes, frayed with casino work, the beauty, the desolation and ruin-who is inclined to cast a stone at these filles de joie? who blames them alone? who does not wonder why such things are? who would not do them every good if one could—if higher than ever, at the same time winking to some one within. Up came the bewitching Ferdinand, glorious, too, but old and ebriose; and, under cover of a fresh round of cheers from the public, Miranda vanished. Presently the cry stopped, and the big man smiled again, and thumped his drum more fiercely. I stepped out of the crowd, and getting to the end of the caravan, peered through a broken panel. There was our gum-flowercrowned Miranda sitting beside a cradle, on an old regimental drum, with her baby at her breast. Oh! how lovely, how blessed, how at peace they looked, how all in all to each other! and the fat handy-pandy patting its plump, snowy, unfailing friend; it was like Hagar and young Ishmael by themselves I learned that the big man was her husband, and used her well in his own gruff way.

one only knew how to reach, how to prevent their ever being what they are? Here, too, as everywhere, is his gentleness, his compassion, his sympathy. It is as affecting, though not so terrible, as the dying and the burial scenes in the Harlot's Progress, and surely it is more humane, more merciful and less hopeless, than Hogarth's awful story. He never did anything of this kind again in Punch, except once. It is given in the second series of Pictures of Life and Character, page 72, and is called, ‘Always Gay.’ It is a scene from a Parisian masque ball, and has a Satanic perfection of wickedness that haunts one, the woman's mouth, the man's cloven feet, his eyeas if damned already.

We end as we began, by being thankful for our gift of laughter, and for our makers of the same, for the pleasant joke, for the mirth that heals and heartens, and never wounds, that assuages and diverts. This, like all else, is a gift from the Supreme Giver-to be used as not abused-to be kept in its proper place, neither despised nor estimated and cultivated overmuch; for it has its perils as well as its pleasures, and it is not always, as in this case, on the side of truth and virtue, modesty and If you wish to know from a master of the art what are the dangers of giving one's-self too much up to the comic view of things, how it demoralises the

sense.

whole man, read what we have already earnestly commended to you, Sydney Smith's two lectures, in which there is something quite pathetic in the earnestness with which he speaks of the snares and the degradations that mere wit, comicality, and waggery bring upon the best of men. We end with his concluding words :

'I have talked of the danger of wit and humour : I do not mean by that to enter into commonplace declamation against faculties because they are dangerous;-wit is dangerous, eloquence is dangerous, a talent for observation is dangerous, every thing is dangerous that has efficacy and vigour for its characteristics; nothing is safe but mediocrity. The business is, in conducting the understanding well, to risk something; to aim at uniting things that are commonly incompatible. The meaning of an extraordinary man is, that he is eight men, not one man ; that he has as much wit as if he had no sense, and as much sense as if he had no wit; that his conduct is as judicious as if he were the dullest of human beings, and his imagination as brilliant as if he were irretrievably ruined. But when wit is combined with sense and information; when it is softened by benevolence, and restrained by strong principle; when it is in the hands of a man who can use it and despise it, who can be witty and something much better than witty, who loves honour, justice, decency, good-nature,

morality, and religion, ten thousand times better than wit-wit is then a beautiful and delightful part of our nature. There is no more interesting spectacle than to see the effects of wit upon the different characters of men; than to observe it expanding caution, relaxing dignity, unfreezing coldness,-teaching age, and care, and pain, to smile,-extorting reluctant gleams of pleasure from melancholy, and charming even the pangs of grief. It is pleasant to observe how it penetrates through the coldness and awkwardness of society, gradually bringing men nearer together, and, like the combined force of wine and oil, giving every man a glad heart and a shining countenance. Genuine and innocent wit and humour like this, is surely the flavour of the mind! Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food; but God has given us wit, and flavour, and brightness, and laughter, and perfumes, to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to "charm his pained steps over the burning marle."

Some time after the publication of the foregoing article, the author received, among various papers and letters relating to the great humourist, the following reminiscences, written by his friend the Rev. S. Reynolds Hole, now Canon of Lincoln,-to whom we owe the letterpress of A Little Tour in Ireland,