Greek artist, whose labours only become visible in all their delicacy by the aid of a powerful microscope, which demonstrates that they could not have been wrought without the assistance of that instrument, supposed to have been unknown to the ancients. Another artist represented a chariot drawn by four horses in full gallop, and directed by a charioteer, on a gem so small that it could be covered by the wing of a fly. This delicate and beautiful branch of art was so extensively practised in Greece, that innumerable galleries all over Europe are now filled with the gems which have been accidentally preserved; and there is seldom an excavation undertaken in Rome, Naples, Athens, Corinth, or any other ancient city, which does not bring to light new and exquisite specimens. These considerations suggest one of the uses to which the treasures of the Ural may hereafter be applied. We say hereafter, because, notwithstanding that ciphers and mottoes, with certain fantastic devices, are habitually engraved on gems by Russian artists, they exhibit, properly speaking, no approaches to art. Men have indeed appeared, both in Germany and Italy, able to imitate so exactly the gem-engravers of antiquity, that their productions have passed with ordinary judges for genuine antiques. The younger Pichler, for example, engraved, during the last century, on a white transparent cornelian, the figure of a young man bearing a trochus or hoop, which, having been stolen from the artist, was sold as an antique, and passed through the hands of a number of connoisseurs without exciting the slightest suspicion, till, by a strange chance, it came again into the possession of the artist himself, who, of course, recognised his own workmanship. It has been a question among antiquaries, whether the ancient gem-engravers executed their work with the wheel, or with fine steel instruments tipped with diamond. From the appearance of some unfinished gems, it seems perfectly evident that the wheel was used, but we must not on that account discard the theory that fine separate instruments were likewise employed. May not the artists have executed the first rough labour with the wheel, and then finished off with a diamond graver? In the Ural, the lapidaries divide the softer stones with iron wheels, but employ copper discs which turn on an axis in cutting the harder, and to intensify their power, cover them with powdered jasper impregnated with iron. No observer, however, capable of conveying a correct idea of their art has yet visited Ekaterinburg, so that we are compelled to depend for information on the rough untechnical accounts of scientific travellers, wholly unacquainted with the delicate processes of ancient art. lapidaries, and are equally guilty or innocent with them. There is perhaps some probability, that in the gloomy regions in which fortune has stationed them, superstition exerts extraordinary power over the mind, and leads to the performance of fantastic rites and ceremonies analogous to the temper and disposition of the Russians, who, in their proneness to the indulgences of sense, unite the intrepid recklessness of Asiatics with the craft and cunning of Europeans. No conjecture can probably be made which would approximate to anything like truth respecting the length of time that will be required to people and civilise Siberia. The government of the czars has made numerous spasmodic efforts for the purpose of directing eastwards the stream of population, but hitherto with no great success, because the laws and institutions of the country, co-operating with the peculiarities of the climate, effectually check the development of any civilising system. Despotism is a poor nursing mother to an infant community. Wages such as were paid in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, would at this moment be thought extravagant at Perm, Ekaterinburg, and Tobolsk. The greatest incentive to industry is consequently wanting, exactly as among the negro races of Africa, who are content, like the inferior animals, with mere existence, because the forms of society to which they find themselves subjected are calculated to insure them nothing more. At present, the vast tyranny of Russia is in the throes of change, and the whole world may be said to be looking as anxiously in the hope of beholding some extraordinary political birth. Siberia is included in the circle of these agonies, complete deliverance from which can only be effected by shattering the whole fabric of Russian despotism, and creating a number of independent communities within the present limits of the empire. There seems, however, to be no reason why independent communities may not yet be created in that part of the world where the Kalmuks, the Kirghis, the Nogais, the Karismians, the Mongols, and the Mantchous, have been at various times at once powerful and exempt from external authority. Many persons seem to anticipate the regeneration of Asia from the Russians, who have lately displayed immense activity on the Amoor and the borders of the Northern Pacific; but nearly every colony they have planted between the Volga and Kamtschatka has proved feeble and sickly, and ultimately died out. An illustration on a small scale of this truth is supplied by the present condition of a palace in the neighbourhood of Nevyansk, belonging to the family of Yakofleff. Built and furnished in the Dutch taste during the reign of Peter I., it has remained ever since uninhabited, though, in obedience to their distant lords, the vassals of the family still keep the edifice in repair, and the furniture in good condition. When a traveller patronised by the government presents him It has often excited surprise that artists in most countries, and in nearly all ages, have exhibited a tendency to religious enthusiasm, and have usually belonged to sects remarkable for the wildness of their doctrines and practices. The fact, however, may easily be accounted for. To excel in art, requires the preva-self, he is admitted and entertained with princely lence of the imagination over most other faculties; and wherever this is the case, the mind is prone to indulge in dreams, and to seek to satisfy its longings by modes of belief and conduct lying out of the common road. So at Ekaterinburg the lapidaries are generally seceders from the orthodox Greek church, and belong to sects, the members of which, whether with or without reason, are commonly accused of putting out the lights after the performance of their religious worship, and indulging, like some of the early heretics, in excesses and abominations not to be described. In all likelihood, these reports originate in the hostility of the orthodox, who launch against the seceders the weapons of calumny, in revenge for their having quitted the common pale. But no traveller has hitherto been at the pains to clear up these points, though a large portion of the inhabitants of the mining capital have joined the heresy of the magnificence, at the expense of the distant owners, who have never seen their Siberian palace, and can probably form no idea of the splendour and luxuries it contains. The walls are hung with ancient paintings, grim and smoky with age; the cellars are stored with French, Hungarian, and Atlantic wines, and the tables are bountifully supplied with a profusion of game and other delicacies from the forests of the Ural. But the solitude of the vast apartments oppresses the mind, suggesting the idea of decayed grandeur or of a mushroom civilisation, scorched into apparent maturity by the arbitrary application of a fierce heat like that of a larch-fire, and then left to wither and fall to pieces unheeded. Should Russia ever possess respectable institutions, its Siberian territories might gradually become inhabited, even under the rule of an emperor. The mineral riches of the earth-the gold, the silver, the platina, the iron, the copper, the marbles, and the endless varieties of precious stones-would of themselves supply an ample revenue, and constitute the nucleus of a respectable system of civilisation. Possibly the first step towards such a state of things is now being taken in Russia. Serfdom, virtually, if not actually, is at an end; the slaves are either in insurrection or on the verge of it; the nobles are all but at war with the government; and out of this political and social chaos, a new order of things will probably proceed, which may make the Volga the eastern boundary of Russia, give rise to a new metropolis in the Ural, and pour the wealth of its mines through many new channels into Southern Asia. MELIBUS UPON THE COMMERCIAL WORLD OF LONDON. 'Now, which would you rather be,' quoth Melibus, as we were discussing the great problem of Social Position together one evening, a Miraculous Corncutter, a Hair-destroyer, or a Rocking Boy? all which I came upon this morning, in New Oxford Street, within a stone's-throw of one another. The rocking boy's livelihood is made by exposing himself to the horrors of sea-sickness for seven hours daily, in order to convince people who look in at the windows, that "the motion is exactly similar to that of the living animal." The miraculous corn-cutter is probably subject to the detraction and ridicule which await every benefactor of his species. The hair-destroyer is a problem to me. His mission cannot surely be so terrible as its name would imply; for if so, who can be his customers? Who wants to have his hair destroyed? Even lunatics are not made bald by their own desire!' Nay,' said I, 'he raises and he razes. He has pomades for top-dressing, for increasing capillary vegetation, and others for arresting it. He will sell to the same individual an elixir for his whiskers, and also an eradicating fluid for his moles.' An enterprising tradesman indeed!' observed Melibœus, 'for consider the risk a careless customer must run in dealing with him. He might misapply these potent medicaments, and so divest himself of his head of hair, and receive in compensation some luxuriant but unnatural growth upon the tip of his nose. These are strange trades, but nothing to some that are followed in this wondrous metropolis. In St John's Wood, the other day, I saw a considerable crowd collected before a handsome villa, drawn together by the spectacle of a young gentleman, sandwiched with a placard in front and rear of him: "This is the Butcher's boy waiting for his Bill." This was doubtless a delicate reminder to the inhabitant of the villa that the account was a little overdue. But do you think it was the butcher's boy, or some youth whose regular profession it is to amend the commercial morality of the age in that singular fashion? I am in great doubt of this. You can find people in London to do anything. At the Emporium of the East, for example, you are served by individuals of dusky hue, and apparelled in Hindu and Mohammedan costumes, but who are certainly from no further East than Whitechapel. There are the persons who compose those Tableaux Vivants, which you tell me I am not to take Mrs M. to see. And there are the perambulating advertisement-men, whose garbs are now getting to be so very odd that I wonder they don't frighten the horses.' The other methods of attracting public attention are also becoming outré in the extreme,' said I. Conceive the embarrassment of a foreigner upon reading this announcement, which ornaments all the daily papers: "Who's Scroggins? Fire, thieves, fire!" By what intellectual process would he discover that Scroggins sells fireproof safes? The suggestors of these very striking announcements are probably highly remune rated, but I doubt the advisability of adopting some of them. Here, for instance, is a "bill delivered," which reached me but yesterday, for a jacket and trousers-me, who am unhappily twenty years upon the wrong side of such things, and whose child is still in tunics; it is a regular account, with every item scrupulously set down; and at the bottom: "Boys' suits to measure, supplied at the above wholesale prices." Its object, of course, is to induce one to look at it without discovering that it is an advertisement; but some people never do look at their bills, and all persons abhor the sight of them. Perhaps the advertiser trusts to the revulsion of feeling which Paterfamilias must experience upon finding that he doesn't owe the money after all. Of the new perambulating advertisers the best is that respectable doctor's boy, with the clean-covered basket, who gives you little elaborately packed parcels, with samples of the woollen goods inside them, which are to be found at the emporium itself.' Nay,' said Melibus, not the best. The best is a man in armour who stands at the door of a Curiosity Shop in Shoreditch, with General Repository written under him, as though that were his military title.' it.' My dear Melibus,' said I firmly, 'I don't believe "It is so, nevertheless,' replied he; and of unintentional absurdities such as that, there is one close by Waterloo Bridge, which is quite as funny: "Irish Volunteer Brigade, Orderly Room." How singular it is that so quick-sighted a nation should have overlooked the contradiction in terms. There is also a “Philanthropic Institution a little further on, with nothing but ropes and nooses in its window-an invitation to universal suicide. It is a pity that so many really good persons should be destitute of the sense of humour; but it is almost always the case. An excellent missionary once offered me the Sunday at Home. "Nay," said I, putting it gravely aside, "it would be very much better to have spent it at church." He looked rebuked, but I very much doubt if he understood me.' 'Your remark is just,' said I; but, on the other hand, a humorist often renders himself incapable of considering anything quite soberly, or at least without a certain philosophic playfulness. And, talking of humour, Melibus, is it, think you, from the absence or presence of that faculty that we so often see such curious associations of names over the shop-doors; such as Flint and Steel, for instance, in High Holborn? Were those gentlemen cognizant, think you, of how odd it would sound, when they got into partnership; or did the peculiarity itself suggest their joining forces; or did they not think about it at all?' 'Well,' rejoined Melibous smiling, 'it could be of no great consequence to them, since nothing could be easier, if the firm did not prosper, than for Flint and Steel to strike. But, as a matter of fact, there are astonishingly few of these titular coincidences, whether designed or otherwise. There are not half a dozen in all London.' 'Pooh, pooh,' said I, 'there must be half a hundred. Why should I credit thee, O inhabitant of Bullock Smithy, upon such a point as this?' 'Because I have eyes in my head, and use them,' returned Melibous with dignity. I know more about London than any other man in the world. Now, listen. There is Buffon and Wilson, bird-stuffers and naturalists, in the Strand. That is the most remarkable partnership of all, not only from the association of names, but from the wonderful congruity of their pursuit. There is Latimer and Ridley, who are not, however, martyrs, but Bootmakers, although they live in Bishopsgate Street. There is Greenfield and Partridge, stockbrokers, Throgmorton Street; and there is Negretti and Zambra, of ever so many streets, remarkable only for the inconsistency of their names with their profession; scientific instrument-makers (and very good ones), who yet sound somehow as if they had emigrated from the coast of Africa. Besides these five, there is not, I believe, a firm in Londonif we look on Commerce from the comic point of view-deserving of a moment's attention.' And are there no single names with anything peculiar about them, O most observant Melibœus?' 'There is Hyde, a leather-seller, and Greenhus, a gardener, and that is all. Perhaps the rarest name is I'on (with an apostrophe between the I and the o): I have only noticed that once. The most singular profession is that of a Say manufacturer, whom I should have supposed to have been a writer of fiction, if he had had a few thousand companions, instead of being alone in London. There is also a single Peelmaker, whose employment is shrouded in mystery.' 'But, my dear friend,' urged I, while I thank you for your wish to afford information, permit me to say that you cannot have surveyed every street in the metropolis, nor, indeed, one-fiftieth part of them. It is impossible that you can be in a position to generalise with such exactness.' I have a great habit of observation,' observed Melibus complacently, and I will make you what wager you please that I am correct. There is one Blood-drier "dreadful trade”—and let us be thankful that he is unique. The paucity of professors of some arts does, however, greatly astonish me. There is only one corkscrew-maker: the Cockneys drink their wine from the wood, or else this is not the most hospitable city in the world.' 'Such a lack seems monstrous, Melibœus.' 'It does; but yet so it is. And there are only two coal-shovel makers, inclusive (I suppose) of the people who make the bishops' hats.' 'My dear Melibus, do tell me, in sober seriousness, where did you acquire these minute and curious particulars of London commerce?' At Bullock Smithy,' returned he, and an ingenuous calm, I am bound to say, pervaded him. There are no less than eleven persons who devote their entire energies to the making of pill-boxes.' 'Melibaeus,' cried I, with sudden vehemence, 'you are a gross impostor; your "great habits of observation" are all moonshine. I see it all now: you have been getting up the Commercial Directory.' 'You have hit it at last,' returned he blandly. 'I took the one for 1860 home with me, and studied it very carefully for a fortnight. It is one of the finest works ever written, and I flatter myself I am now a master of it. It has not very much poetry about it, but some of its facts are harmonious, and comforting too. I learn from it, for example, that there are no less than ninety tripe-dressers in the metropolis. Conceive, therefore, the quantity of tripe, and the number of persons who must consume it daily! I was delighted to find that delicacy in such repute, for at Bullock Smithy it is scarcely recognised, and Mrs M. even refuses to set it before me, as not being a dish for a genteel table. In London, of course, there are no such miserable prejudices. I must confess, however, that a certain note upon the dairymen, in this valuable volume, did a little stagger me just at first. "Individuals marked thus x," it says, are purveyors of asses' milk." Now, in Bullock Smithy, such an intimation would be made ground of action at once, and set every cowkeeper up in arms.' 66 'Is that unhallowed whisper true?' said I, 'which hints that the Smiths are not so numerous in the Commercial Directory as has been believed for centuries?' "They are second in number,' said Melibus decisively; they make up some 1300; but the Joneses top them by fifty or so. The Browns, including the aristocratic ones with the final e, amount to 600; the Williamses to 450. After them the Robinsons, Taylors, Edwardses, and others, are equally numerous, being about 250 each. The Macs, in spite of the scandal about the emigration of North Britons to London, altogether only equal the Browns; and there are only two Scotchmans in the metropolis.' "These investigations of yours must have been very tiresome, Melibus, but their results are really interesting. Did you happen to calculate which trade has the most numerous followers?' 'I tried to do so, but feeling vertigo to be imminent, I abandoned the attempt. The sub-divisions of labour were, however, so very curious, that I took down the particulars of one of them for an example. There are 950 watchmakers; but besides these there are seven-and-twenty callings connected with watches, and with watches only, comprising barrel-makers, balance-makers, comparative balancemakers, enamellers, cap-makers, case-makers, engineturners, dial-plate makers, engravers, escapementmakers, finishers, fusee-makers, case-gilders, glassmakers, jewellers, hand-makers, joint-finishers, keymakers, material-dealers, pallet-makers, pendantmakers, secret-springers, &c., &c. Singularly enough, with all this there is but one alarum-maker-a monopolist who should surely make some noise in the world.' 'Do the names of the traders retain any connec tion with their pursuits, Melibous? Are there many Bakers, bakers, for example?' Only one; and but one Butcher, butcher: though there are 16 Taylors, tailors, out of nearly three hundred of that name. Among all the throng of Shepherds, there is but one who retains the least characteristic of that pastoral calling: he is a bellhanger; but then, alas, he is also a gasfitter.' And what becomes of our Shakspeares and Miltons in this prosaic age, O my Melibous! What wood-notes wild do they warble in the unregardful streets?' "There are eight Miltons who follow somewhat sordid trades. A ninth reminds us (very dimly) of his august and travelled progenitor by keeping an Italian warehouse. Of Shakspeares there are but four; and of these, the one whose pursuits seem most to chime with that of the immortal bard, is but the proprietor of a Fancy Repository.' A NIGHT THOUGHT. The mild moon travels 'mid her golden isles, Pours the soft lustre of her quiet smiles! In these, Thy mighty works, no evidence of Thee. The Editor of Chambers's Journal has to request that all communications be addressed to 47 Paternoster Row, London, and that they further be accompanied by postagestamps, as the return of rejected Contributions cannot otherwise be guaranteed. All MSS. for publication should be written on one side of the page only. The author of the Tale entitled The Witness, is requested to send name and address. Printed and Published by W. & R. CHAMBERS, 47 Paternoster Row, LONDON, and 339 High Street, Edinburgh. Also sold by all Booksellers. THE VOICELESS ONE LAURA TIPPETTS and I had known one another from childhood. Our parents lived on opposite sides of the way in a highly respectable street in the neighbourhood of Mecklenburgh Square. I have heard people deny that that is a fashionable square, and that the streets in its immediate vicinity are fashionable streets, but I have never found any one to deny that both they and it are highly respectable. The very policemen on the different beats acknowledge that. There was never any such murder done in it as was attempted in that otherwise respectable street off the Strand the other day. There was once an attempt at suicide, which was the nearest approach to it that I can recollect, and that was only with charcoal, which is not horror-striking; besides, the perpetrator opened the window as soon as he felt the sense of suffocation very oppressive, though the reason he generally gave was, that just as he felt his senses going, it suddenly struck him he had an engagement next day in the city, which he had forgotten till that very moment. The bloodiest affair that I recollect in our street was an encounter between Master Tippetts and myself, differences having arisen upon the subject of fairly knuckling-down at marbles; and I am bound to confess that the hæmorrhage he produced from what pugilists would call my proboscis, was extraordinary; but I am not without hopes that the reason for his wearing a green shade over one eye during several successive days from the date of our little affair,' might have been traced to an administration, upon my part, of what the gentlemen aforesaid denominate 'pepper.' He certainly said he had a pigstye; but I regret to state that though Joe Tippetts had a great regard for appearances, he had little or none for truth. How I became acquainted with Laura, was on this wise: We not only lived on opposite sides of the same street, but in exactly opposite houses; it followed, therefore, naturally, that we were constantly looking out at the window at the same time; we flattened our noses at corresponding panes of glass; we emulated each other in the capture of flies; we gave half-pennies to the same organ-grinders; we bought milk from the same cow (for in Mecklenburghia they do, or did when I was young, drive about a live cow and sell real milk from it); we imitated the same 'buy-a-broom' girl; and, sad to relate, PRICE 14d. we occasionally made faces at one another. Moreover, we walked in the same spots, and bowled our hoops in the same localities; so that one day, when Laura and I were coming at full hoop-speed in opposite directions, these came into collision, and rolled together into the road. As the only son of a poor widow, I had, of course, even at eight years old, been taught a certain amount of gallantry; I therefore recovered both hoops, and as I returned Laura hers, with a somewhat sheepy air, said: 'Hollo! I know you; your name 's Laura Tippetts.' 'So do I know you,' said she with childish frankness; 'your name's Robert Jacket, and you're always making faces at me.' She was only just nine years old, and already had feminine tact enough to take a mean advantage. It's my firm belief that she commenced making faces; but by cleverly bringing the accusation against me, she stood upon some kind of vantage-ground. However, I answered sulkily: 'So are you at me.' To which she had the impertinence to reply: 'Rude boys must be rudely treated,' as if she had been my grandmother. Then she stole another march upon me: seeing me rather nonplussed, she inquired suddenly: 'How did you know my name?' This was a question easily answered, so I replied with a readiness that must have carried conviction to any mind: 'Your servant told our servant, and she told me. How did you know mine?' Had I been a little older, I might have drawn an argument from my own confession; but as it was, I asked the question with some anxiety, and she replied, holding up her forefinger slily: 'Oh, a little bird told me.' And though I didn't believe it, I didn't like to say so, but remained dumb, wondering within me whether she had mysterious sources of informaIn later years this tion which were closed to me. has helped to confirm an opinion I entertain, that girls at a very early age receive from their mammas ; for you must private instruction in artfulness have noticed how, when little girls are going out to walk or play with little boys, mammas always call the former aside, and converse with them apart for a few minutes; and during that short conversation many hints, I feel certain, are given for the entanglement in their talk of guileless and pantaloonless young gentlemen; else I am at a loss to conceive how it is reconcilable with the assertion, that the male is by nature the superior animal, that little boys have always the worst of it in wordy combat with little girls. Laura, however, seeing that I was nonplussed, and had never heard of the communications whispered by feathered messengers, fearful, I suppose, lest the spirit of scepticism should lead me to ask unanswerable questions, hastened to change the subject; and as we walked home together, with Master Tippetts, who was not partial to strangers, sulking in the rear, she inquired what I was going to be when I grew up, to which question I promptly answered: A general.' 'Why, was your papa a general?? No, my papa was only a major.' "Then, how do you know you'll be a general?' 'Oh! ma says I shall. She says pa would have been, only he died so young.' 'But do you think you'll ever be tall enough to be a general? Why, the gentleman who drills my brother is a head taller than my papa, and he is only a captain.' 'Do you mean old Stocks?' Yes, I do: Captain Stocks.' 'Do you know he isn't a real captain?' 'Oh! yes, he is; I heard pa call him so.' 'Well, ma says he isn't: she says he was pa's servant once, and he never was higher than a sergeant. She says he wouldn't salute her when he meets her in the street, if he'd been a captain; and people only call him captain 'cos they think he likes it, and a captain can charge more money than a sergeant.' that I had confounded Mr Tippetts with the Wise King; for of wisdom Mr Tippetts was, I think, guiltless, nor could he be accused of letting justice interfere with his penal arrangements. This, I think, is apparent from the treatment I experienced at his hands in the matter of our baker. The baker who supplied the families of Tippetts and Jacket with their daily bread was a worthy man, but to whom I'cottoned' immensely in those early years. He was the happy possessor of a cart and a very fast pony, and it was my delight to get him to take me with him now and then, when he went his daily rounds. He, kind soul, not only indulged me, but entertained me on the road with stories of his life, with accounts of fluctuations in the price of flour, which I could not comprehend, and with new buns gratis, which were exactly suited to my apprehension. To all these delights I introduced Laura and her brother, and many joyous drives did we take together in the friendly baker's cart; but one unlucky day, as we were returning full of glee, in tip-top spirits, and with currant bun in fist, we suddenly turned a corner, and nearly ran over Mr Tippetts. I wished we had, a few minutes after, for it cost me many a tear. Old Tippetts held a consultation with my mother and his wife, and the result was that I had a difficulty in sitting down for some hours. I was found guilty of forming low acquaintances, and introducing the young Hereupon, and before the knotty point was settled, Tippettses to them, and fear was expressed that unless we arrived at Laura's door, at which stood Mrs Tip-I were checked in my career, I should make a melanpetts, newly arrived from a shopping expedition, who, seeing me in company with her children, took the liberty (and I considered it a great liberty) of patting my cheek, shewed a perfect familiarity with my name, habits, place of abode, &c., and concluded by asking me to come in and drink tea with Laura and her brother; which I did, after running home first to ask mamma.' And so it came to pass that I grew intimate with Laura, and that my mamma became intimate with Laura's; for of course, after my teadrinking, my mamma called to thank Mrs Tippetts for her kindness. It was a fatal day for me in many ways. I certainly reaped some advantages from the connection, but I as certainly reaped some disadvantages, not the least of which was a generous offer made by Mr Tippetts, when he became sufficiently acquainted with my mother, to administer any corporal punishment which my mother might consider likely to be of service to me in after-life. This offer, I grieve to say, my (I speak with all filial respect) misguided parent accepted; and the consequence was, I both feared Mr Tippetts and hated him with the hatred of the flogged. Nor did he always wait to be asked-had he done so, I think my sufferings would not have been very great-but taking a mean advantage of the inch which had been allowed him, he increased it beyond an ell; and putting himself completely in loco parentis, chastised me on his own account, and so robbed me of the only source-such as it was of congratulation which I had derived from my fatherless condition, when I observed the frequency with which Mr Tippetts invited his son to private interviews in the study, the reluctance exhibited by Master Tippetts to avail himself of the paternal confidence, the rushing, swishing sound, as of a wind-bowed branch in the leafy month of June, that was to be heard by standing sentry at the keyhole, and the smothered cries that succeeded the swish, as of a little boy in agony who is forcibly held in a prone position. So vividly was Mr Tippetts connected in my mind with such recollections, that afterwards, when I went to school, and had a Greek grammar with a picture upon the title-page of Solomon chastising his son, I took it for granted that it was intended to represent a scene between old Tippetts and his offspring, and wrote their names under the respective figures; nor could I be easily brought to understand choly ending upon the gallows. The poor baker was severely reprimanded, and I was severely punished. And yet there was not one of my grander friends who would take me out for drives, tell me stories of their lives, and gratify my taste for currant buns. Perhaps they had more to be ashamed of in their lives than my honest friend the baker. There was an offer made to pay him for his buns, whereat he very properly waxed indignant: he said it wasn't his desire to 'pison the minds of the young gentlefolks, he liked to see chil'un happy; what they'd had, they was welcome to: and as for their parents' custom, he didn't want it partickler, and they might take it som'eres else, if they liked.' I am happy to say my mother thanked him on the sly, but she was a lone widow, and too weak to battle with the world. Old Tippetts talked very big to her, and she acquiesced, but was not convinced. The baker never spoke to me again after the unfortunate occurrence, but he always greeted me with a sad, kind smile, as though he felt he was an injured man, but knew that it wasn't my fault. Lie lightly on that baker, earth, when he goes beneath thy upper crust! Laura and I talked the matter over, and came to the conclusion it was a great shame; and so openly did we shew our feelings, that I was very soon sent to school. I now saw Laura only in the holidays; but during them we were as intimate as ever. It was perfectly understood that we were to be married so soon as our respective ships came home; and our respective parents tacitly and smilingly consented to the union. But alack for early loves! I had left school, having reached the manly age of fifteen; I had been delivered over to the watchful care of a reverend gentleman, who lived in 'a beautifully situated parsonage not far from town, and who prepared young gentlemen for passing those examinations which are necessary to be passed by aspirants for future field-marshalships; I had the opportunity of associating with other young gentlemen of the same heroic tendencies with myself, of the same promises, on the part of their doting mothers, of generalships in the army, of manlier age-for one was eighteen-of more experience in society, and of greater pecuniary means; I had the inestimable advantage of breakfasting, dining, teaing, dancing, and flirting with the reverend gentleman's two daughters, under the supervision of their mamma; I frequently went out to the |