herring to a debtor's score; no, he would not be sent to the workhouse by anybody. A quarter of an hour after, the denied herring, with an added small loaf, was given to the little girl sent to the shop by the rejected mother,' he couldn't bear to see poor children wanting anything.'

"Pugwash had another unprofitable weakness. He was fond of what he called nature, though in his dim, close shop, he could give her but a stifling welcome. Nevertheless, he had the earliest primroses on his counter,'they threw,' he said, 'such a nice light about the place.' A sly, knavish customer presented Isaac with a pot of polyanthuses, and, won by the flowery gift, Pugwash gave the donor ruinous credit. The man with wall-flowers regularly stopped at Isaac's shop, and for only sixpence Pugwash would tell his wife he had made the place a Paradise. 'If we can't go to nature, Sally, isn't it a pleasant thing to be able to bring nature to us?' Whereupon Mrs. Pugwash would declare that a man with at least three children to provide for had no need to talk of nature. Nevertheless, the flower-man made his weekly call. Though at many a house, the penny could not every week be spared to buy a hint, a look of nature for the darkened dwellers, Isaac, despite of Mrs. Pugwash, always purchased. It is a common thing, an old familiar cry," said the Hermit-"to see the poor man's florist, to hear his loud-voiced invitation to take his nosegays, his penny-roots; and yet is it a call, a conjuration of the heart of man overlaboured and desponding-walled in by the gloom of a town-divorced from the fields and their sweet healthful influences-almost shut out from the sky that reeks in vapour over him; it is a call that tells him there are things of the earth beside food and covering to live for; and that God in his great bounty hath made them for all men. Is it not so?" asked the Hermit.

"Most certainly," we answered; "it would be the very sinfulness of avarice to think otherwise."

"Why, sir," said the Hermit benevolently smiling, "thus considered, the loud-lunged city bawler of roots and flowers becomes a high benevolen e, a peripatetic priest of nature. Adown dark lanes and miry alleys he takes sweet remembrances-touching records of the loveliness of earth, that with their bright looks and balmy odours cheer and uplift the dumpish heart of man; that make his soul stir within him, and acknowledge the beautiful. The penny, the ill-spared penny-for it would buy wheaten roll-the poor housewife pays for

root of primrose, is her offering to the hopeful loveliness of nature; is her testimony of the soul struggling with the blighting, crushing circumstance of sordid earth, and sometimes yearning towards earth's sweetest aspects. Amidst the violence, the coarseness, and the suffering that may surround and defile the wretched, there must be moments when the heart escapes, craving for the innocent and lovely; when the soul makes for itself even of a flower a comfort and a refuge."

The Hermit paused a moment, and then in blither voice resumed. "But I have strayed a little from the history of our small tradesman, Pugwash. Well, sir, Isaac for some three or four years kept on his old way, his wife still prophesying in loud and louder voice the inevitable workhouse. He would so think and talk of nature when he should mind his shop; he would so often snatch a holiday to lose it in the fields, when he should take stock and balance his books. What was worse, he every week lost more and more by bad money. With no more sense than a buzzard, as Mrs. Pugwash said, for a good shilling, he was the victim of those laborious folks who make their money with a fine independence of the state, out of their own materials. It seemed the common compact of a host of coiners to put off their base-born offspring upon Isaac Pugwash; who, it must be confessed, bore the loss and the indignity like a Christian martyr. At last, however, the spirit of the man was stung. A guinea, as Pugwash believed of statute gold, was found to be of little less value than a brass button. Mrs. Pugwash clamoured and screamed as though a besieging foe was in her house; and Pugwash himself felt that further patience would be pusillanimity. Whereupon, sir, what think you Isaac did? Why, he suffered himself to be driven by the voice and vehemence of his wife to a conjurer, who in a neighbouring attic was a sideral go-between to the neighbourhood-a vender of intelligence from the stars to all who sought and duly fee'd him. This magician would declare to Pugwash the whereabout of the felon coiner, and— the thought was anodyne to the hurt mind of Isaac's wife-the knave would be law-throttled.

"With sad indignant spirit did Isaac Pugwash seek Father Lotus; for so, sir, was the conjurer called. He was none of your common wizards. Oh no! he left it to the mere quack-salvers and mountebanks of his craft to take upon them a haggard solemnity of look, and to drop monosyllables, heavy as bullets, upon the ear of the questioner. The mighty and magnificent hocus pocus of twelvepenny magicians was

scorned by Lotus. There was nothing in his look or manner that showed him the worse for keeping company with spirits: on the contrary, perhaps, the privileges he enjoyed of them served to make him only the more blithe and jocund. He might have passed for a gentleman, at once easy and cunning in the law; his sole knowledge, that of labyrinthine sentences made expressly to wind poor common sense on parchment. He had an eye like a snake, a constant smile upon his lip, a cheek coloured like an apple, and an activity of movement wide away from the solemnity of the conjurer. He was a small, eel-figured man of about sixty, dressed in glossy black, with silver buckles and flowing periwig. It was impossible not to have a better opinion of sprites and demons, seeing that so nice, so polished a gentleman was their especial pet. And then, his attic had no mystic circle, no curtain of black, no death's head, no mummy of apocryphal dragon -the vulgar catch-pennies of fortune-telling trader. There was not even a pack of cards to elevate the soul of man into the regions of the mystic world. No, the room was plainly yet comfortably set out. Father Lotus reposed in an easy chair, nursing a snow-white cat upon his knee; now tenderly patting the creature with one hand, and now turning over a little Hebrew volume with the other. If a man wished to have dealings with sorry demons, could he desire a nicer little gentleman than Father Lotus to make the acquaintance for him? In few words Isaac Pugwash told his story to the smiling magician. He had, amongst much other bad money, taken a counterfeit guinea; could Father Lotus discover the evil-doer?

"Yes, yes, yes,' said Lotus, smiling, 'of course to be sure; but that will do but little: in your present state-but let me look at your tongue. Pugwash obediently thrust the organ forth. 'Yes, yes, as I thought. 'Twill do you no good to hang the rogue; none at all. What we must do is this-we must cure you of the disease.'

"Disease!' cried Pugwash. 'Bating the loss of my money, I was never better in all my days.' "Ha! my poor man,' said Lotus, it is the benevolence of nature, that she often goes on, quietly breaking us up, ourselves knowing no more of the mischief than a girl's doll, when the girl rips up its seams. Your malady is of the perceptive organs. Leave you alone, and you'll sink to the condition of a baboon.'

"God bless me!' cried Pugwash.

"A jackass with sense to choose a thistle from a toadstool will be a reasoning creature

to you! for consider, my poor soul,' said Lotus in a compassionate voice, 'in this world of tribulation we inhabit, consider what a benighted nincompoop is man, if he cannot elect a good shilling from a bad one.' "I have not a sharp eye for money,' said Pugwash modestly. 'It's a gift, sir; I'm assured it's a gift.'

"A sharp eye! An eye of horn,' said Lotus. 'Never mind, I can remedy all that; I can restore you to the world and to yourself. The greatest physicians, the wisest philosophers, have, in the profundity of their wisdom, made money the test of wit. A man is believed mad; he is a very rich man, and his heir has very good reason to believe him lunatic; whereupon the heir, the madman's careful friend, calls about the sufferer a company of wizards to sit in judgment on the suspected brain, and report a verdict thereupon. Well, ninety-nine times out of the hundred, what is the first question put, as test of reason? Why, a question of money. The physician, laying certain pieces of current coin in his palm, asks of the patient their several value. If he answer truly, why truly there is hope; but if he stammer, or falter at the coin, the verdict runs, and wisely runs, mad-incapably mad.'

"I'm not so bad as that,' said Pugwash, a little alarmed.

"Don't say how you are-it's presumption in any man,' cried Lotus. Nevertheless, be as you may, I'll cure you, if you'll give attention to my remedy.'

"I'll give my whole soul to it,' exclaimed Pugwash.

666

"Very good, very good; I like your earnestness, but I don't want all your soul,' said Father Lotus, smiling-'I want only part of it: that, if you confide in me, I can take from you with no danger. Ay, with less peril than the pricking of a whitlow. Now, then, for examination. Now, to have a good stare at this soul of yours.' Here Father Lotus gently removed the white cat from his knee, for he had been patting her all the time he talked, and turned full round upon Pugwash. Turn out your breeches' pockets,' said Lotus; and the tractable Pugwash immediately displayed the linings. 'So!' cried Lotus, looking narrowly at the brown holland whereof they were made -'very bad, indeed; very bad; never knew a soul in a worse state in all my life.'

"Pugwash looked at his pockets, and then at the conjurer: he was about to speak, but the fixed, earnest look of Father Lotus held him in respectful silence.

"Yes, yes,' said the wizard, still eyeing

"Green-green as a grasshopper, when it first came into my hands,' said the wizard; 'but 'tis changing daily. More; it was a skipping, chirping, giddy soul; 'tis every hour mending. In a week's time, I tell you, it will be fit for the business of the world.'

"And pray, good father-for the matter has till now escaped me-what am I to pay you for this pain and trouble; for this precious care of my miserable soul?'

ever.

"Nothing,' answered Lotus, 'nothing whatThe work is too nice and precious to be paid for; I have a reward you dream not of for my labour. Think you that men's immortal souls are to be mended like iron pots, at tinker's price? Oh, no! they who meddle with souls go for higher wages.'

"After further talk Pugwash departed, the conjurer promising to bring him home his soul at midnight, that night week. It seemed strange to Pugwash, as the time passed on, that he never seemed to miss his soul; that, in very truth, he went through the labours of the day with even better gravity than when his soul possessed him. And more; he began to feel himself more at home in his shop; the cobbler's lark over the way continued to sing, but awoke in Isaac's heart no thought of the fields: and then for flowers and plants, why, Isaac began to think such matters fitter the thoughts of children and foolish girls, than the attention of grown men, with the world before them. Even Mrs. Pugwash saw an alteration in her husband; and though to him she said nothing, she returned thanks to her own sagacity, that made him seek the conjurer.

"At length the night arrived when Lotus had promised to bring home the soul of Pugwash. He sent his wife to bed, and sat with his eyes upon the Dutch clock, anxiously awaiting the conjurer. Twelve o'clock struck, and at the same moment Father Lotus smote the door-post of Isaac Pugwash.

"Have you brought it?' asked Pugwash. 666 'Or wherefore should I come?' said Lotus. 'Quick: show a light to the till, that your soul may find itself at home.'

"How did it get there?' cried Pugwash in amazement.

666

"Through the slit in the counter,' said the conjurer; and ere Pugwash could speak again, the conjurer had quitted the shop.

"For some minutes Pugwash felt himself afraid to stir. For the first time in his life he felt himself ill at ease, left as he was with no other company save his own soul. He at length took heart, and went behind the counter that he might see if his soul was really in the till. With trembling hand he drew the coffer, and there, to his amazement, squatted like a tailor, upon a crown-piece, did Pugwash behold his own soul, which cried out to him in notes no louder than a cricket's-'How are you? I am comfortable.' It was a strange yet pleasing sight to Pugwash, to behold what he felt to be his own soul embodied in a figure no bigger than the top joint of his thumb. There it was, a stark-naked thing with the precise features of Pugwash; albeit the complexion was of a yellower hue. "The conjurer said it was green,' cried Pugwash; 'as I live, if that be my soul-and I begin to feel a strange, odd love for it-it is yellow as a guinea. Ha! ha! Pretty, precious, darling soul!' cried Pugwash, as the creature took up every piece of coin in the till, and rang it with such a look of rascally cunning, that sure I am Pugwash would in past times have hated the creature for the trick. But every day Pugwash became fonder and fonder of the creature in the till: it was to him such a counsellor, and such a blessing. Whenever the old flower-man came to the door, the soul of Pugwash from the till would bid him pack with his rubbish: if a poor woman-an old customer it might be-begged for the credit of a loaf, the Spirit of the Till, calling through the slit in the counter, would command Pugwash to deny her. More: Pugwash never again took a bad shilling. No sooner did he throw the pocket-piece down upon the counter, than the voice from the till would denounce its worthlessness. And the soul of Pugwash never quitted the till. There it lived, feeding upon the colour of money, and capering, and rubbing

dropped-dropped in. In time, the soul of Pugwash grew too big for so small a habitation, and then Pugwash moved his soul into an iron box; and some time after, he sent his soul to his banker's-the thing had waxed so big and strong on gold and silver."

"And so," said we, "the man flourished, and the conjurer took no wages for all he did to the soul of Pugwash?"

"Hear the end," said the Hermit. "For

some time it was a growing pleasure to Pugwash to look at his soul, busy as it always was with the world-buying metals. At length he grew old, very old; and every day his soul grew uglier. Then he hated to look upon it; and then his soul would come to him, and grin its deformity at him. Pugwash died, almost rich as an Indian king; but he died, shrieking in his madness, to be saved from the terrors of his own soul."

"And such the end," we said; "such the Tragedy of the Till? A strange romance."

66 Romance," said the Sage of Bellyfulle; "sir, 'tis a story true as life. For at this very moment how many thousands, blind and deaf to the sweet looks and voice of nature, live and die with their souls in a Till?"

THE TRAVELLER;

OR A PROSPECT OF SOCIETY.

[Oliver Goldsmith, born at Pallas, Leinster, Ireland, 10th November, 1728; died in London, 4th April, 1774. The pathetic and yet amusing narrative of his early years is well known; his wanderings at home and on the Continent, his misfortunes and final settlement in London, are familiar to most readers. Of his works there is only one opinion: his histories are full of errors in the statement of facts; but are models of English composition; his imaginative works-poems, comedies, and novels-are classics. Lately, The Traveller, like other important productions of his genius, we fear, has been more talked about than read, and therefore we reproduce it here. "The Traveller," wrote Sir S. Egerton Brydges, "is indeed a very finished and a very noble poem. The sentiments are always interesting, generally just, and often new; the imagery is elegant, picturesque, and occasionally sublime; the language is nervous, highly finished, and full of harmony."]

Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow,
Or by the lazy Scheld, or wandering Po;
Or onward, where the rude Carinthian boor
Against the houseless stranger shuts the door;
Or where Campania's plain forsaken lies,
A weary waste expanding to the skies;
Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravell'd fondly turns to thee:
Still to my brother turns, with ceaseless pain,
And drags at each remove a lengthening chain.
Eternal blessings crown my earliest friend,
And round his dwelling guardian saints attend;
Bless'd be that spot, where cheerful guests retire
To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire:
Bless'd that abode, where want and pain repair,
And every stranger finds a ready chair:
Bless'd be those feasts with simple plenty crown'd,
Where all the ruddy family around
Laugh at the jests or pranks that never fail,
Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale;

Or press the bashful stranger to his food,
And learn the luxury of doing good.

But me, not destined such delights to share,
My prime of life in wandering spent and care:
Impell'd with steps unceasing to pursue
Some fleeting good, that mocks me with the view;
That, like the circle bounding earth and skies,
Allures from far, yet, as I follow, flies;
My fortune leads to traverse realms alone,
And find no spot of all the world my own.
E'en now, where Alpine solitudes ascend,
I sit me down a pensive hour to spend;
And placed on high, above the storm's career,
Look downward where a hundred realms appear;
Lakes, forests, cities, plains extending wide,
The pomp of kings, the shepherd's humbler prida
When thus Creation's charms around combine,
Amidst the store, should thankless pride repine?
Say, should the philosophic mind disdain
That good which makes each humbler bosom vain?
Let school-taught pride dissemble all it can,
These little things are great to little man;
And wiser he, whose sympathetic mind
Exults in all the good of all mankind.

Ye glittering towns, with wealth and splendour crown'd;

Ye fields, where summer spreads profusion round;
Ye lakes, whose vessels catch the busy gale;
Ye bending swains that dress the flowery vale!
For me your tributary stores combine:
Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine.
As some lone miser, visiting his store,
Bends at his treasure, counts, recounts it o'er,
Hoards after hoards his rising raptures fill,
Yet still he sighs, for hoards are wanting still:
Thus to my breast alternate passions rise,
Pleased with each good that Heaven to man supplies:
Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the hoard of human bliss so small;
And oft I wish, amidst the scene, to find
Some spot to real happiness consign'd,

Where my worn soul, each wandering hope at rest,

May gather bliss to see my fellows bless'd.

But, where to find that happiest spot below,
Who can direct, when all pretend to know?
The shudd'ring tenant of the frigid zone
Boldly proclaims that happiest spot his own;
Extols the treasures of his stormy seas,
And his long nights of revelry and ease.
The naked negro, panting at the line,
Boasts of his golden sands and palmy wine,
Basks in the glare, or stems the tepid wave,
And thanks his gods for all the good they gavo.
Such is the patriot's boast where'er we roam,
His first, best country, ever is at home.
And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare,
And estimate the blessings which they share,
Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find
An equal portion dealt to all mankind:
As different good, by art or nature given,
To different nations makes their blessings even.