Mr. Walton know of ship-building ?-of practical engineering ?-or practical mechanics? Why, no more than Mr. Archer or the moon. These are the things you need. You are a master of your work, and all its handicraft. You should now advance to the scientific principles upon which that handicraft is founded, by which it is strictly directed, and without which it cannot safely proceed a single inch. Do not misunderstand me. I would not at all perplex your mind with the intricacies of science. I advise you only to study practical knowledge, and rules which are necessary to your advancement as a ship-wright and builder. For instance, I do not wish you to confuse yourself over difficult mathematical or geometrical problems. I do not wish even that you should study logarithmic tables, either of numbers, or of lines and tangents; that is, not at present, valuable and indispensable as they are; nor a variety of other tables, of the specific gravity and weight of materials; of the specific cohesion and strength of materials; resistance of woods to pressure; resistance of metals to torsion, and so forth. Still, there are many selections from these necessary for you to make in order to arrive

Here Harding gave a low, half-suppressed groan. Mr. Bainton made a grave and reproving pause, and then proceeded in a tone of increased importance.

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Still, I say, there are many selections from these parts of mechanical science which would be most valuable to you if you seek to obtain a fit and proper education. I allude to a correct knowledge, not only of the resistance of different woods to pressure, but to the specific strength, gravity, weight, cohesion, and elasticity of materials, and of woods more especially. Then, you should certainly be able to find the relative strength or force of resistance of rectangular beams to transverse strain or pressure, whether the beam be fixed at one end, and loaded at the other, or when uniformly loaded; whether the beam be supported at both ends, and loaded in the middle; whether the beam be supported at both ends, observe, and uniformly loaded; or whether the beam be fixed at both ends, and loaded in the middle, or uniformly loaded, or loaded at a point not in the middle. You must absolutely be able to find the deflections of beams under transverse strains. Important studies, did I call them! They are indispensable to you in your position and course of life; while, in themselves, nothing in the world could be more interesting and delightful."

"I don't know," murmured Harding with a sort of calm obduracy, "I don't know that they would be to me the most delightful studies in the world, Mr. Bainton. I take in the • Mechanics' Magazine.

"Well," said Mr. Bainton, extending one hand.

“ And I find it not suited to a mechanic, but to those who understand the science of mechanics. It is a mechanician's magazine. That makes all the difference. It is just the same as with the

Mechanics' Institutes. I wish we could have a real Mechanics' Institute, and a real Mechanics' Magazine. I hope you do not think me ungrateful; but I cannot by any means make up my mind to study things I do not need now, and which can only be needed in positions which I do not now, nor in future, intend to take. I am a working man, and I intend to remain a working man.

"I have heard you say this before," said Mr. Bainton, gravely. "You mean to adhere to it, then?"

Mr. Bainton remained thoughtful some time, and a shade of melancholy came over his hard square features.

"I have no family-no relations," proceeded he at length; "no son, in whose progress through life I could take an interest. Mrs. Bainton is a very good and pious woman, but she is not much company for me. I often feel very lonely, and I should have been glad to have had a son; and sometimes I almost resolve to adopt one, only my wife might trouble me about that. Well, and so you don't like to study to become a master ship-builder, and to follow in my steps? What do you say to boat-building?"

"Oh! but I can do that already. I once built boats in Canada to my cost."

"I know. But would you like to build fishing-smacks— leaving your position in the Dockyard, for which you should have due compensation by the security of continuous employment with me? You would be more independent."

"Not if I were in any shape a partner," said Harding: "I will be no proprietor or master, only a working man. A leading man, if you please but still an operative.

Mr. Bainton continued some time with his head bent towards the ground. At length he entered into a full explanation with Harding. It was to this effect-that the movements of the new building-firm for Associated Homes were to be, for a time, suspended, owing to several causes,-the chief of which was, the

opinion that the public mind was not yet quite ripe enough to support it. The firm were cautious men, and would not venture at present. Meantime a new project had been originated by Mr. Short, who had considerable connexions in Ireland. The coasts of Ireland were well known to possess great shoals of fish-the Irish fishermen could not obtain them for the want of piers and harbours, and sea-worthy boats. Now, the present project was to establish a fishery on some good part of the coast abounding with fish, where there were natural bays and inlets that would serve as harbours, and to build a number of excellent fishing-smacks. By this means they would take an incalculable quantity of valuable fish, not attainable at present by any of the Irish fisheries, where everything is deficient-except the fish. The conversation then turned upon Harding's resignation of his position in the Dockyard, which he did not much like to do notwithstanding the guarantee offered him. However, he asked a few days to consider the proposal.

Meanwhile the building of Mr. Walton's pleasure-boat advanced rapidly. Harding gave about an hour a-day to it, and worked with cheerful assiduity, the more so as his boat-house was continually visited by pleasant friends. Sometimes Mr. Walton would come in, and discourse away at a great rate as to the excursions he proposed to make when the weather was extremely fine and smooth; sometimes Archer came and reiterated and enlarged upon the advice he had given Harding as to his self-education; sometimes Mr. Bainton came, and reiterated his, followed by Mr. Walton, who declared that his advice was the only sensible one suited to Harding's circumstances, and prospect in life; and sometimes Mary and Miss Lloyd paid Harding a visit, and seemed rather disposed to make merry with the variety of conflicting recommendations he had received.

On one of these occasions Mary gradually fell into a more serious tone on the subject, declaring that she believed he might extract some good out of each-by far the most, of course, out of Archer's advice-but that she thought the best thing Harding could do, was to avail himself of every opportunity of conversation with these friends of his, upon the subjects they chiefly recommended; by which means they would, in some sort, teach him, and that he would thus acquire a great deal more in a short time than if he endeavoured to learn by himself from books, in which a student can very seldom find an answer to the questions he

most wishes to ask. Miss Lloyd coincided in this opinion; and finally the two ladies smilingly exhorted him to converse most with those he liked best, and upon those subjects which he himself wished to know something about, and not what his advisers thought to be the most important things in the world.

To all this Harding listened most attentively; and when the ladies left him, he stood for several minutes immoveable over his work, and looking down into the bottom of the boat with an expression of face at once thoughtful and delighted. While he was thus engaged, Archer came sauntering in.

"Why, Harding!" said he, "you are not working-you are dreaming!"

Harding started a little, and coloured.

"Oh, you can well afford the time for this," continued Archer, pleasantly. "You always work hard enough to earn the right to a good, heavenly reverie, at least once a-day. And nothing can be better for you. It is just the food that is good for the soul of a man like you. Substantialities can always take care of themselves, and you have more than your share of hard solid things already."

After some brief conversation, Archer drew a folded slip of paper out of his waistcoat pocket, and gave it to Harding. "All this morning," said he, "I have been thinking of what you said about the city of the Millions, which is within the city of the Few -the dark and filthy city which is invisible, and which has no name. It is very true; yet how difficult to make clear to the understanding of those who do not know its truth.

The over

crowded courts and alleys of such places as Bethnal Green and Whitechapel, are populous parts of the city of the operatives-but who knows of those places? Who would call those courts and alleys "London ? " These hard realities have suggested some verses. The poem shall be dedicated to you, Harding, for you were its originator-its primal idea. Do you feel uncomfortable at being thus reduced to the first forms of things-melted back into the elements of thought?"

Harding smiled, and thanking Archer, took the paper and put it carefully into his pocket. Soon after this Archer went away. He had felt himself sweetly troubled and tingling all the morning with poetical impulses, and of course there was no relief for this but hurrying off into verse.

When Archer was gone, it appeared as if Harding was likely to

fall again into a reverie, and one of a graver and less pleasurable character than that from which he had just been roused. He stood with the chisel in his hand, and a troubled brow. At length he laid it down, and drawing from his pocket the slip of paper given him by Archer, he unfolded it, and read the following verses:

THE UNSEEN CITY.
There is an Unseen City,
As old as Babylon,

Where creatures dwell in narrow holes,
Burrows and crannies dark, like moles
Poor exiles from the sun-
The ever-wakeful stars-the blessed moon ;
Seeing no glory in the night or noon..

It is no black banditti

That swarm these countless dens;
Where spiders weave above the head,
With res and mice beneath the bed;
Nor are the regions fens;

Nor do the inmates love the efts and toads
And pestilential air of these unknown abodes.

Are they of monstrous features,
Elf, oaf, or bedlamite,
Who swoll'n with sloth obscenely roll
Midst filth and gloom, and odours foul,
Cursing, and cursed, by light?
Or can they be some nations of a land
Cast out from human eye by God's wise hand?

Who are the hideous creatures?

See! palace walls divide!

A strange bell tolls-down falls the steeple !
"WE ARE THE WIDE WORLD'S WORKING PEOPLE,
WHO DWELL THUS THRUST ASIDE!

Our city is around-beneath-behind

And, like our myriad graves, is Nameless-none can find!"

He

Harding folded up the paper again. It was curiously perplexing to his mind to find his own thoughts put into verse. felt deeply grateful to Archer for the interest he thus manifested; and somehow, as Harding thought of all this, it made him very melancholy. He did not see how he could ever show any adequate gratitude to Archer.

But as for Archer, he had gone away in a very happy frame of mind. It was quite clear that he had a poetry-fit upon him. We may infer that he was fortunate enough at least to please