No. 1. NEW SERIES.

THE HOUSE OF NUMBERS. NATURE nowhere shows her partiality more remarkably than in the very different proportions in which she deals out the ever-succeeding new generation of our race amongst those who are to bring them up. Her average is ascertained to be four and a half children-for statisticians are Solomons in this respect at least, that they never scruple to halve a child-her average, I say, is four and a half children to each couple, and a very fair and reasonable burden this would make, if it were a uniform case, barring, indeed, that the half-child, even though not quite left without a single leg to stand upon, might be rather troublesome to set up in life. But anything like this happy medium-by which I mean four or five-is unfortunately not more frequent of occurrence than almost any other number under twice the amount. Nature, indeed, evidently despises the average of the statisticians. To some she gives six, seven, eight, and so on; to others, three, two, one. Nay, it is not uncommon for her-though this is what a friend of mine, who has twelve, never could understand-to give not even one. This friend and I once reckoned up above a dozen couples of our common acquaintance who were in this state of double blessedness; all of them professedly most happy and contented in their having been spared the cares, toil, and expense of a family, although vexed every day of their lives at the way in which their friends managed their young flocks, so different from the way in which they knew children ought to be managed; so that it might be said their only source of regret was in the accident which had placed the rising generation in the hands of the only people not qualified to rear them. But this again is nothing. The strange thing is, that nature should keep our dozen friends so perfectly exempt from their share of this duty towards society, while to others she deals such a tissue of issue, as make poor men think of such quotations as

"Another and another! Will they stretch on
Unto the crack of doom"-

or of such venerable and veritable proverbs as, "It never rains but it pours," and all that sort of thing.

My friend I may as well say at once that it is my cousin John Balderstone-sometimes groans under what ne calls his visitation of children; but he is such a happy-tempered fellow, that I cannot doubt that his groans are much more in jest than in earnest. Indeed, I rather think he likes to have a joke now and then at himself and his spouse on the score, as he himself would say, of their score. For instance, he professes that they are pelted with children. He speaks of the population of his house. The very children themselves, he alleges, wonder at their own numbers. He had a feeling of alarm, he declares, at every fresh addition up to the sixth; but after that, custom hardened him a little; and ever since the eighth, he has been perfectly indurated. Mrs John, for her part, takes things quite as easily, being entirely of that quiet good temper which one somehow expects in a lady who has had a large family. John often raises a laugh about her anti-Malthusian

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qualifications, at which she only turns to him one of those placid smiles which speak so much more than words between such as are happily united, and then peaceably resumes her attention to a nameless little garment, which I half believe she has never ceased hemming for the last ten years.

'One of John's jokes about his multitudinous state is, that he and other persons in the like circumstances are designed as beacons to give young men in their quadrilling days a salutary caution on the subject of matrimony-at least not to enter upon their matrimonial, till they are pretty sure about their patrimonial state. It is, he says, a kind of final cause for enormous families. Nature-so runs his argument-desires that the population should not increase too fast for subsistence. Were all families moderate in number, thoughtless youth might be encouraged to rush to the temple of Hymen in too great numbers. As a warning, she here and there plants a couple whom she oppresses with a burden of blessings absolutely overwhelming. Young men, seeing such a tremendous risk before them, think it best to keep cool, and go out to India. Syllogistic as this appears, I suspect it to be fallacious at bottom, for, as far as I can see, John and Susan are anything but miserable under their load. Whenever I happen to be in their house, I find it the seat of good humour and comfort; nor is there even more noise or confusion than (let me speak good-naturedly) is bearable. My reasoning rather is, that the polypedic state, as John sometimes calls it, is in itself an evidence (though the converse of the rule may not hold) of the presence of the chief elements of happiness in a house, as health, good temper, sufficiency; for it is never found in any station of life where these do not exist; so that the idea of its being a source of vexation or an oppression may be said to be self-refuted. And I think I shall be able to make good this point before quitting my pen.

John's own constant jocularity on the subject serves to convince me that he at least feels his charge but lightly. Spending a night lately in his house, and getting up rather early, I met him in the staircase, when he told me he would show me a sight. He then led me along a passage, at the end of which was an apartment which I recognised as the nursery, from the school-like murmur of little voices which proceeded from it. There, upon a long table, was ranged, in two rows, a series of shoes of almost all sizes, reminding me very much of the stalls for the sale of such articles second-hand, which are to be seen in the humbler parts of our city. "John, what a bill this speaks of," said I. He only laughed, and then led me to a window commanding a view of his washing-green, where I saw such ropefuls of little petticoats, and little stockings, as were perfectly bewildering. I held up my hands in astonishment: John only laughed once more. We took a short walk, and returned to breakfast, when my ears were saluted by a confused noise proceeding from a side-room. "What is that?" said I. "Oh," said he, "only the meal mob." The mystery and the phrase were explained together, when he opened a door and showed me a multitude of little

ones proceeding to plant themselves at a table on which was ranged a double row of dishes containing the porridge which may be said to form our national breakfast, while at each end stood a tureenful of milk, flanked by a pile of spoons. "Mob truly," thought I, as the creatures pushed about for their places, all eagerness to fall on; while two or three of the smallest, overset in the hurry, set up a squall, quickly stilled by the soothing care of the attendants, by whom these minuter fry were taken upon knee to be fed. Some ten or a dozen faces were now turned upon me with a comic expression, as if to inquire what I thought of the scene; nor could I help observing that the very same burlesque interrogation reigned in the blithe visage of my friend and host. "John, have you insured upon your life?" was my question as we left the room. "Oh, all right there, my boy," said he. No more passed. The humour and the wisdom involved in these few words were alike understood between us. Our own breakfast, at which Mrs Balderstone presided, all smiles and white dimity, passed as quietly as if there had been no children in the house, a fact which I could not help remarking; when the lady said, "Why, it would be grievous, indeed, if a large family were necessarily to insure that the parents were never to be free for one moment from its turmoils. A little management, where the means at all exist, should give them exemption at the times when it is desirable, and particularly when they have a friend living with them." "Yes," said John, "it is quite a point of pride with us that no one shall ever have occasion to say that we are bores with our children. If they are a cumber, they shall be so only to ourselves." These remarks piqued me into asking to see the family after the things should be removed; which, however, was no sacrifice on my part, as I am fond of children generally, and have a few friendships among John's in particular. "The first battalion might be enough," insinuated my friend, by which I knew he meant all down to a particular point where there was a gap of full two years, the only such interval in the family. "No," said I, "the whole regiment, since we are at it." "What, all my pretty ones!" cried he with Macduff's start; "did you say all?" "I have said." quoth I, carrying on the quotation. "My dear, shall we turn on the children just now? I fear it may be too much for our friend; but the blame be upon his own head."

Orders were given, and, in a wonderfully brief space of time, in trooped the whole multitude, all as clean and smart as possible, and all looking supremely healthy and cheerful; the youngest of all coming, like a postscript, in its nurse's arms, a minute after the rest, and looking with that I-don't-know-what-it's-all-about-ishness peculiar to little babies in the midst of a bustle. "Well, here you have the entire school of them," said John for I think this word far more applicable to a family like ours than it is to an assembly of whales." "Happy, happy, happy pair!" said I; "thrice happy and more, by which I suppose it may be implied that you have what might make rather more than three couples happy -mayn't it?" "To be candid," said John, " could have wished before that the lot had been to be distributed amongst three or any larger number, instead of being concentrated upon one; but what I think now is quite a different question." Here I had him again for my argument.

It was amusing now to see how the multitude grouped itself out into separate parts, according to ages, sexes, and those peculiar ever-shifting associations of preference which exist amongst all children living together. A set of boys ranging from eight to thirteen got by themselves to a window, where they whispered, looked shy, and finally, when they had got a little confidence, burst into a great laugh. Two or three misses of similar standing ranged themselves modestly beside the maternal stalk, whence alone, it appeared, they could look at me with any degree of composure. But the drollest part of the business was the behaviour of a lot of very

young female rosebuds, among which was included, as by some mistake, one very tiny boy-sing hey ho the wind and the rain. The foregone conclusion, as to the footing on which these creatures stood with papa, was quickly shown by the abandon with which they literally precipitated themselves upon him where he sat, the first in hand seizing him round the neck, and kissing him violently, the next seizing his arms, legs, and every other available part, while one left-over miss and the little boy could only crow outside the fluttering struggling mass, in hopes of finding an inlet to my good friend's person by and by. The whole scene reminded me very much of “Philoprogenitiveness" in the inimitable George Cruikshanks's Illustrations of Phrenology, where an honest Hibernian, stretched back in an armchair, is barnacled all over with little ones in a similar manner. Only a few murmurs of affected displeasure could be heard from John for some time; but at length, by dint of considerable exertion, he, Gulliver-like, emancipated an arm, by the gentle use of which he in time contrived to obtain at least the means of breathing freely, when he exclaimed, "Ye preposterous creatures, I declare I've spoilt ye all!" "So all the proper people would say, and probably do," said Mrs Balderstone; adding, "but I never can think that spoiling which gains the unlimited affection of one's own children;" and I could see a rather more than usual moistness in her eye as she spoke. As this was quite a sentiment of my own, I expressed my hearty wish that all young people could say they were spoilt in the same way. I was now told, what I could have easily sur mised, that all the children of this family were regularly taken in charge by papa at about a year and a half old, and made his playmates till they were eight or nine, his whole conduct towards them during this period being so unreservedly on the level of their own sportive inclinations, that he became the greatest possible favourite with them. It was his system, as Dr O'Toole would have said. "Once let me persuade my children to love me," he privately remarked to myself, speaking for once in downright earnest, "and I'll defy them to be disobedient or vexatious. And to make them love me, what but constant kindness from me to them can be necessary? Depend upon it, sir, when parents are not objects of affection to their children, it is their own blame; for it is the nature of the relation to dispose the younger party to affection, and, if the means are taken at all, the result is certain." Alas! how much unhappiness arises from acting contrary to this simple philosophy!

As it was a holiday, and the children were therefore to stay at home, John expressed a wish to hear them sing some of their last-acquired songs. Accordingly, Mrs Balderstone, in her usual complying way, seated herself at a piccolo piano-forte which they keep in the dining-room, and accompanied a group of sweet choristers in several simple ditties, which, as they seem particularly well adapted for children, I take leave to recommend to family notice.* All, even to the youngest, were correct in tune; and though now and then a very little miss would contrive to wander half a bar astray in time, the general effect was delightful. "Quite an independent concert power you will have in your family- . circle by and by, John," said I. "Yes, for a time it may be so," answered he; "but when the basses begin to go off to professions or colonies, I fear the tenors and trebles will sing rather small. However, don't let us anticipate evil." Dancing succeeded, partly elegant, partly grotesque; and such a blithesome floor I have rarely seen. But why protract a description which must have already convinced the reader that, in this instance at least, an enormous family is no evil. Suffice it to say, that I left my worthy cousin that morning with much more serious thoughts of Laura than I had entertained any time for the previous six months, and very much inclined to think that love and a flat (the

*They are entitled, Mrs Kingston's Vocal Music for the Young.