gushing through the tube of a straw), which is seen and felt only by the lover of nature and the friend and enlightener of man. To his view they epitomise the great mysteries of the mind: they embody a power no less capacious than the universe itself-whose breath is like the air of heaven, and whose torch is burning far over palace-tops, and shines upon the high mountains: it is the spirit of Liberty, of Science, and intellectual Dominion. The terms may be contracted, as the body may endure bonds and the mind become enfeebled; but the sense is without a limit, and goes forth "trumpettongued" to plead the cause of mankind. It is in this sense that £. s. d. should be inscribed on the huts of savages and stamped upon the diadem. They should be the first letters taught in schools, that the earlier and better interpretation might counteract the deadening effects of that which infallibly results from a collision with worldly interests. It would be well if they were engraven on the ploughshare: that the spirit which is now alive only to the labour and thanklessness of its lot, might turn an eye of research into the by-paths of nature, and find a relief in simple and neglected sources which the mercenary hope of profit can rarely inspire : in short, that the spindle and yarn, like those of Alcithoe, might be transformed in the hours of rest into a vine and ivy. It might be a measure not unworthy the advocates of moral and religious emancipation, to check the deadly prejudice which has sprung up wherever these insignia of civilisation have appeared, by unveiling the happier and more honourable meaning to the common eye. Lectures may be delivered, and volumes written, to prove the excellence of one axiom and the absurdity of another; but the entire history of social kindliness and mutual distrust is open to the

understandings of all in the little compass of £. s. d. The fertility and barrenness of that "three-nook'd world" can be seen only by contrast; and human nature will continue to ransack the caverns of earth and ocean, until it be taught the intrinsic value of a flower, and be made to feel the beauty of a blade of grass. Prejudice now runs in favour of gold-another century may see our merchants bartering their manufactures for roses and daffodils. Those will be days indeed when the "blue-vein'd violet" passes current through the kingdom,-when man may grow his own money at his own window; and instead of objecting to the sound or impression, may approve the odours and colours as they issue from Nature's mint. Thus the £. s. d. which the present generation is so earnest in the study of, may prove only a dull riddle to the next: it will be a wise precaution, then, to attach to them an import which no time can render obsolete. Let us look to the great and paramount objects they may be made to indicate; or we may find them like the bird described by Spenser, that turned to a hedgehog in the grasp of its pursuer. Finally, considering them in this their grandest signification, it would hardly be a matter of surprise, if, as certain signs and letters have been found or fancied in the cups of flowers, some future anatomist, with a little aid from imagination, should trace in the veins of the human heart a resemblance to these alphabetic phenomena.

THE LAST BOOK:

WITH A DISSERTATION ON LAST THINGS IN GENERAL.

"Books, dreams, are both a world."—WORDSWORTH.

66

Most men of letters-that is to say, most men who are in the habit of writing apologies and complimentsmust have experienced, at least once in their epistolary lives, the unseasonable misfortune of breaking down. on one of the smoothest roads of phraseology, at the very outset of a gracious communication. The "Dear Sir" that stands in elevated loneliness at the edge of one's paper, looking on the white expanse, is retouched and beautified three several times; the dot is put to the i, and perhaps some little terminating embellishment to ther; before the extreme regret or very ardent pleasure is turned to shape, and provided with a local habitation. Although not perpetrating a direct epistle to My dear Public" (to borrow the beautiful and affectionate language of the theatre), I find myself, on the threshold of my intention, in a situation similar to that above adverted to. I am embarrassed, like a new Lord Mayor, about the perpetuity of my title-that is, of my Last Book; for authors, as well as aldermen, are sometimes destined to forego their titles at the end of a season, and mutually surrender their pages to the rapacity of the next in advance. To say the truth, I anticipate a supplementary extinguisher to the light of this 'Last Book, a sort of post-obit, an after-dated appendix. The word "last," it is to be lamented, is not sufficiently final to preclude the emulative subsequency of all we leave behind we cannot close the doors of language on the thousand little beginnings that tread on the

heels of the safest conclusion. A term should be invented comprehensive enough to include those superlatively late comers that usually follow the last-the second edition of company expected to have arrived before, and the host of extraordinaries that have been detained by events. But, as words are at present, last things (so to speak) are generally the last things in the world that are last. Witness the thousand-andone last times of the auctioneer, together with the several last appearances of Mrs. Siddons and others, and all the last representations of puff-needing farces and comedies. We will not stay to enumerate the many last poems, and last poems for some years, written by Byron; nor will we admit into the catalogue the last words of the celebrated Mr. Baxter, nor last speeches of any kind, nor the "Last of the Mohicans," nor the last lottery. The inadequacy of the word to include. contingencies and possibilities must be sufficiently evident. An inquiry concerning the "Lay of the Last Minstrel" would probably produce an account of some just published "rhymes," written in very blank verse, accompanied by an anatomical description of a boarding-school Pegasus. Again, should we be unexplanatory enough to ask for a certain production by the equivocal title of "The Last Man," we might be called upon to answer the anomalous interrogatory-which of the Last Men? Mr. Campbell's prior and poetical candidate, or Mrs. Shelley's subsequent and sybilline one? In short, there is no getting at the last of our never-ending, still-beginning language; and however we individualise them, each of the above-mentioned last persons may pertinaciously insist, with the little philosopher of a certain lyrical ballad, " nay, we are seven." Nor will the "positively last," even when put in italics, set us forward (or backward rather) a single step: it is only

opening the door to a comparative and superlative. Since, therefore, no circumspection, no flexibility of terms can settle anything as final but for the time being, I abstain from drawing out such phrases as the Last-of-all Book, or the Latest of the Last Books; it being clear to the least logical comprehension, that the lapse of one day might produce a Later-than-that-Book. Accordingly, without putting syllables to the rack, I leave the Last Book to engender its bibliographical posterity, merely soliciting for it the patronage of that extensive part of the community, the Last People in the World, who will doubtless place it among the many last things at present so popular. Having now, it is hoped, in a truly modern spirit, excited the requisite portion of curiosity, I proceed to disappoint expectation with an alacrity not to be surpassed by the Northern Novelist himself.

Whether the "balm of hurt minds, great nature's second course," having been ordered to lie on the table of the Long Parliament, had been served up to me by the hand of the Protector, it would be impolitic as well as ungrateful to determine. Quite certain it is that I had sauntered through some ninety-nine pages of the Last New Novel (though least not last!) when my eyes involuntarily and uncritically closed-only as I thought during the interval of turning over a pageand, on the instant, I found myself fifty fathoms deep in meditation upon the stupendous pyramid of paper and pasteboard that has been reared by the labours of a single pen. I thought upon the hours of fine frenzy, the weeks of studious application; of the fever of spirit; the bubbling-up of the blood from the centre of sensation; the thirst of glory, and of bills payable at sight; that had been devoted to its erection. I then ventured a glance at the countless fingers that had been