shift the awkward burthen of an equivocal duty from his own shoulders ?

"

I once drank tea in company with two Methodist divines of different persuasions, whom it was my fortune to introduce to each other for the first time that evening." Before the first cup was handed round, one of these reverend gentlemen put it to the other, with all due solemnity, whether he chose to say anything. It seems it is the custom with some sectaries to put up a short prayer before this meal also. His reverend brother did not at first quite apprehend him, but upon an explanation, with little less importance he made answer that it was not a custom known in his church in which courteous evasion the other acquiescing for good manners' sake, or in compliance with a weak brother, the supplementary or tea grace was waived altogether. With what spirit might not Lucian have painted two priests, of his religion, playing into each other's hands the compliment of performing or omitting a sacrifice, the hungry God meantime, doubtful of his incense, with expectant nostrils hovering over the two flamens, and (as between two stools) going away in the end without his supper.

A short form upon these occasions is felt to want reverence; a long one, I am afraid, cannot escape the charge of impertinence. I do not quite approve of the epigrammatic conciseness with which that equivocal wag (but my pleasant school-fellow) C. V. L., when importuned for a grace, used to inquire, first slyly leering down the table, "Is there no clergyman here?" significantly adding, "Thank G-." Nor do I think our old form at school quite pertinent, where we were used to preface our bald bread-and-cheese-suppers with a preamble, connecting with that humble blessing a recognition of benefits the most awful and overwhelming to the imagination which religion has to offer. Non tunc illis erat locus. I remember we were put to it to reconcile the phrase "good creatures," upon which the blessing rested, with the fare set before us, wilfully understanding that expression in a low and animal sense, till some one recalled a legend, which told

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how, in the golden days of Christ's, the young Hospitallers were wont to have smoking joints of roast meat upon their nightly boards, till some pions benefactor, commiserating the decencies, rather than the palates, of the children, commuted our flesh for garments, and gave us—horresco' referens trousers instead of mutton."

THILDREN love to listen to stories about their elders, when they were children; to stretch their imagination to the conception of a traditionary great-uncle, or grandame, whom they never saw. It was in this spirit that my little ones crept about me the other evening to hear about their great-grandmother Field, who lived in a great house in Nor folk (a hundred times bigger than that in which they and papa lived) which had been the scene so at least it was generally believed in that part of the country- of the! tragic incidents which they had lately become familiar with from the ballad of the Children in the Wood. Certain it is that the whole story of the children and their cruel uncle was to be seen fairly carved out in wood upon the chimney. piece of the great hall, the whole story down to the Robin Redbreasts; till a foolish rich person pulled it down to set up a marble one of modern invention in its stead, with no story upon it. Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went on to say, how religious and how good their great-grandmother Field was, how beloved and respected by everybody, though she was not indeed, the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining county; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity

of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's: other house, where they were set up, and looked as awkward as if some one were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing-room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, "that would be foolish indeed." And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, ay, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their greatgrandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer-here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted-the best dancer, I was saying, in the county, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came, and bowed her down with pain; but it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still up-right, because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents would do her no harm;" and how frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she-and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grandchildren, having us to the great house in the holydays, where I in particular used to spend many hours by myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Cæsars, that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with

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them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their wornout hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels, with the gilding almost rubbed out-sometimes in the spacious old-fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me--and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then, and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the firs and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apples, which were good for nothing but to look at-or in lying at upon the fresh grass with all the fine garden smells arend me-or basking in the orangery, till I could almost famey myself ripening too along with the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth-or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pike hanging midway down the water in silent state, as if it mocked & their impertinent friskings,—I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches. nectarines, oranges, and such-like common baits of chilizer Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which, not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant. Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their greargrandmother Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L——, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth, and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would m the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him tal over the county in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out-and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had too much spirit to be always pent up within their boundaries-and how their mach

grew up to man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their for mother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy for he was a good bit older than me-many a mile when I could onot walk for pain; and how in after life he became lameanobis pertore footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient and in' pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me bwhen I was lame-footed; and how when he died, though the had not been dead an hour, it seemed as if he had died are great while ago, such a distance there is betwixt life and death and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at Just, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though bdid not cry or take it to take it to heart as some do, ando as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed him all day slong, and knew not till then how much I had loved him. Je missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness, and odwished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him te again, and was as uneasy without him, as he, their poor uncle, must have been when the doctor took off his Timb.Here the children fell a-crying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, and 220about to they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their on their pretty bojungle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty Derom 3011 long in daidead mother. Then I told how for seven long years, & hope sometimes, sometimes in despair, yet persisting ever, ted courted the fair Alice W-n; and as much as children. I could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and aldifficulty, and denial, meant in maidens-when suddenly denial, meanor one LLOBOT Iturning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at gher eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both Hathe children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, mouthful feadand still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful feasentures, were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without ay speech, strangely impressed the effects of speech: pressed upon me the effects of Jud 001 29bing has olar Tigt wuf baszobobmed molt midtre qu tung