NUMBER 531.

SELF-DOING AND BEING DONE FOR. THERE are some principles of great force in human affairs as the energy evoked by habits of self-dependence, the persevering constancy kept up by hope, and the influence of property-to which too little attention, perhaps, is paid by the speculative thinkers of our age, when considering the circumstances which affect the welfare of communities. We are not sure that we have given these principles a proper degree of attention in some of our own speculations.

The effect upon a human being of bringing him up and keeping him in a state of pupil-like dependence on some stronger mind in his neighbourhood, is sufficiently striking. The native powers of such a person are never fully developed. The soft appliances to which he is subjected, have rather the effect of repressing and weakening such energies as he possesses. He acquires a tendril-like inclination to cling to the power by which he has been always protected, and to which he has been accustomed to look for the gratification of all his desires. Treated always as a child, he continues to be, in short, a child. Nor is it merely the non-development of intellect that marks his sad case; but, unable to think for himself, his very sense of right and wrong is languid, and he is content to take his morals, as well as his bodily aliment, from his protector.

In the case of one who has to plunge into the struggle of the world at an early period of life, with the consciousness of having only his own energies to trust to, how different is the result! There may be a danger of foundering at first; but, that over, we quickly see the adventurer exerting his whole powers-a manly, vigorous, and determined being. He may do much that is amiss. He may go sadly wrong upon certain occasions, for want of a prompter, or for lack of experience; but every error is a lesson to a mind so sharpened, and in time he attains to a far higher standard than he ever could have done under the fostering hand of any kind of protector whatever. This is very much, perhaps, what enables friendless youths so often to make an advance towards fortune, while others possessed of what are called advantages, such as the influence of paternal care and paternal fortune, come little speed. There seems to be an immense virtue in letting a youth, to use a common phrase, feel the weight of himself, though it is not always convenient or agreeable to do it.

Mr Laing, in his late work, "Notes of a Traveller," shows the same contrast to exist between nations whose governments perform all the public business by means of functionaries, and nations which are allowed to do the greater part of the public business themselves. In some continental countries, administration is nearly perfect as a piece of mechanism. From the central government proceed chains of officers in proper gradations, not only for the collection of the revenue as with us, but for the administration of justice, the management of the police, education, and the general business of the country. Mr Laing shows, that, while there are about thirty paid government officials in a Scottish county of 145,000 inhabitants, the department of the Indre and Loire, with only twice the population, has 378 such functionaries. The mayor and his adjunct govern a commune, equivalent to a parish with us; each canton, formed from a number of communes, has an inferior court of civil and criminal law, with five paid officials; each arondissement, formed from a number of cantons, has a higher court, with ten paid officials. An under-prefect takes charge of an arondissement, and a prefect is the

SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 1842.

highest officer of a department. It is calculated, that in all there are 138,000 paid functionaries in France, exclusive of the clergy, the police, the mayors of communes, and the persons engaged in enforcing customhouse laws. Government thus has every thing done for the people. It is well done, but with a cost of eight millions sterling, and it keeps Frenchmen in pupilage. Much of the best young energy of the country is diverted from the productive pursuits of industry to seek for posts under government. "All independence of mind is crushed," says Mr Laing, "all independent action and public spirit buried, under the mass of subsistence, social influence, and honours, to be obtained in the civil and military functions under government on the continent." With a show of political liberty, "the French people have as yet no real civil liberty." They cannot move from one place to another, even to exercise the elective franchise, without a passport from a government officer. "The spirit of subordination and implicit obedience, which we confine to military service, enters on the continent into civil life. A Frenchman or a German would not think himself entitled to act upon his own judgment and sense of right, and refuse obedience to an order of a superior, if it were morally wrong; nor would the public feeling, as in England, go along with and justify the individual who, on his own sense of right and wrong, refused to be an instrument of, or party to, any act not approved of by his moral sense."

How different the case in England! The bustle of petty dignitaries, vestries, and local councils, is often ludicrous; the unpaid magistracy has been subject for both jest and rancour; road trusts are notoriously liable to abuse. Yet all these things are highly serviceable, for they give individuals of an active turn of mind throughout the country something to think about. The necessity of considering and managing public affairs, on however limited a scale, brings out energies in the people, particularly where there is also the stimulus of popular election. An unpaid English magistrate is an independent being; he will put up with no ill usage or dragooning from high quarters. The unpaid town-councillor, though he may be pragmatical and officious, is generally honest and sincere. Mr Laing thinks that, down even amongst the rudest of the people, the active moral agency produced by self-government may be traced. The individual Englishman, the most uneducated and depraved, is superior, in the estimation of this traveller, to the educated continental man of a much higher class, in his discrimination of right and wrong in human action; "he is more decidedly aware of his civil rights as a member of society, and judges far more acutely of what he terms fair play, or of what is due to himself and by himself, in all public or private relations or actions. It is the total absence of government interference, by superintendence and functionaries, in the stream of private activity and industry, that has developed in a remarkable degree the influence of the moral sense on action among the English." Even in the occasional outbreaks which disturb the peace in England and America, our traveller sees the symptoms of something good at bottom. They come, he thinks, from the same spirit which stands forward to save nations on national emergencies. Germany and Italy never have any mobs: they are better without these express things, but they are the worse of wanting that national spirit, of which these things are probably manifestations, though of an irregular kind.

It would thus appear as if there were a perfect analogy between the effects of self-dependence in an individual and in a people. The man who thinks and acts for himself is often wrong, but he is in the main

PRICE 14d.

a superior being to one who is only right because he is kept in constant leading-strings. He will probably do something distinguished, while the other only does not do any harm. For all the exigencies of life, he will prove infinitely more serviceable than the other, and it will be his invariable tendency to become a leader. Just so with nations. The people of a free country may be rude and wrong at times; but it is only amongst them that any vivid energies will be found. They alone will make great and rapid advances. In any shock between the two, it can be no difficult problem which will go to the wall. This analogy is useful for the argument in both cases. If it is well for an individual to practise self-management and self-dependence, it may be presumed also to be so for a nation. If it is well for a nation, we may calculate with the greater confidence that the more that individuals are left to the exercise of their own energies, the better.

There is certainly at present a disposition to lessen the range of the self-doing principle. It springs from good motives, and there is perhaps need for it in existing difficulties and peculiarities in our social condition; but the evil is an evil for all that, and it is well to be fully aware of this, even while consenting to partial breaches of the principle. A prevailing outcry of the day, for example, is that the humbler classes are neglected, and go to misery and error for want of due tendence. It seems to be considered as a sort of duty in some people to do a vast deal more than they do for some other people. But no class of men should be in such need of help. Men of all classes ought to be perfectly independent of each other, in every thing but moral suasion and brotherly love and charity. If the state of our working-classes be so deplorable (not temporarily, but statedly) as is represented, there must be causes for it which no such superficial remedies can be expected to reach. We may-we must-take means to alleviate, if there is no immediate possibility of curing, the evil; but we should still keep in mind that constant pretendings from one class to be taking care of another, providing for it, flannel-petticoating it, cottage-andgardening it, feeding it, and even educating it, must have a detrimental effect of its own, in reducing the independent tone of the assisted class, and rendering those composing it altogether inferior as men and as fellow-citizens. Those who give most largely of their means to stipendiarise the humbler classes are probably the most benevolent, but we question if they are the most effective, of the friends of those classes. In a well-directed effort so to improve their social circumstances as to enable them efficiently to help themselves, more real good is done to them. The industrial power of every well-constituted human being is sufficient, in fair circumstances, to provide for all needs, without man being beholden to man, or class to class. And we may be very sure that only when men are thus independent will they prove right moral beings, or show the energies of men.

The world has never certainly seen so rich a country as England. Its immense wealth is owing not to soil or climate; it is not owing, like that of ancient Rome, to the plunder of all other countries; it is owing to the immense productiveness or industry of its inhabitants. But an unexpected effect attends immense industrial productiveness in this and some other countries. Society becomes polarised into a few with much, and a many with little or no wealth. It may be very true that only large capitalists can carry on either manufactures or agriculture with the result of large production. But when political economy has carried the case thus far, moral economy may come in and

ask, if this result is not obtained at some sacrifice on her ground. Large establishments for production, whether in farms or factories, require that the great majority of the people should be merely employés under masters-persons in whom, necessarily, from their situation, many of the higher moral and intellectual energies of human nature receive an imperfect | development. The principle of hope is universally acknowledged as one of great efficacy in human affairs: to how much good effort does it prompt, from how much error does it withhold !-nature's cheap stimulus to all duty! But the bulk of those who commence a life of labour have little to do with this great principle. They only can look for a continuance of the advantages which they enjoy, on the condition of their continuing to merit them. Again, the possession of even a little property is confessedly of vast efficacy in raising the moral tone of human nature. It increases self-respect, stimulates to exertion, and creates an interest in the social fabric of the world. This, also, is a principle of well-doing and well-being which the bulk of our working-men unfortunately do not enjoy. May it not be these wants which mainly cause those hitherto inexplicable exceptions from the high state of morality and the high state of affluence which our country has attained-namely, its vast mass of intemperance, and its not less vast mass of pauperism? High and low wages are not here the question. It is conceivable that a small rural proprietor, in Switzerland or Tuscany, realises less of money's worth by his toils than many of our working men; but then he has the dignifying and invigorating sense of property, and sees

worse off than herself for the luxuries of life. She was neither her mother's darling nor her father's heir; and as they had some floating ideas of the necessity of both rewards and punishments in the education of children, they solved the difficulty by applying the rewards to Charles and the punishments to Harriet. Poor Harriet, she was no one's pet! She teased her brother, disturbed her papa's naps, grumbled at her mother's partiality, caricatured the tutor, disobeyed and disliked her governess, held Mrs Jones, her mamma's officious maid, in supreme contempt, and was disliked by one half of her friends, and continually reproved by the other; the only persons who loved her undividedly were her little dog Fido, the gardener's daughter, silly Jane, and most of the servants, who pitied and excused her.

Now that we have introduced the Aylmers to our

"Mr Aylmer, may I beg of you once more not to interfere? I believe," said she, casting on him a glance of supreme contempt, "your dinner is of more consequence to you than all your family put together." At this moment Harriet entered, her brow firmly set, her mouth closed, and her whole appearance showing she had made up her mind to bear the storm hovering over her head with dogged indifference. It is needless to repeat her mamma's address to her; the specimen we have given of her eloquence will show the style of it. Harriet listened unmoved and unsoftened. "Well," said her mother, stopping at last for want of breath to go on, "what have you

got to say for yourself? Speak-are you deaf?" "No, I wish I were," muttered Harriet, sullenly; "I have not any thing to say; I know if I were to explain, it would do me no good-I should not get justice done to me."

"Leave the room, Miss Aylmer."

Harriet obeyed; in opening the door she passed the poor governess, wiping tears of mortification from her eyes. Harriet was touched; she went up to her, and, taking her hand, said, "Come, Miss Williamson, let us be friends; I will forgive you if you will me. I am sorry I tied you to a tree, but you put me into such a passion, I could not restrain myself." The governess flung away her hand, and, with flashing eyes, muttered something about hypocrisy. Harriet turned as red as fire; she looked round the room; her brother Charles was laughing at her disappointment. "Take that for 'you cowardly tell-tale;" and, with flashing eyes, ran out of the room.

He is thus made to keep up and go forward, while the tendency of the English employé is quite the reverse. It is no new observation, that most of our enjoyments lie in prospect, and in the tone in which the mind is preserved. If the smallest possible proprietor has most of this enjoyment, he is the best off, although

others may be able to show greater gains.

in the old library.

"Well," continued Mrs Aylmer, "I must know what keeps them so long. Ring the bell, Mr Aylmer; Miss Williamson should remember I don't approve of a young lady of Harriet's age being out so long. Oh, here they come!" she exclaimed, as the door opened. It was not them; it was Charles and his tutor.

"Oh, mamma!" exclaimed the boy, bursting in with an excited look and heated face, "what do you think Miss Harriet has been doing ?-she will get what she does not like, I expect, when you know."

If these be principles affecting the bulk of the industrious in this country, the philanthropic mind may well despond; for how can the social framework of a country be so completely changed as it would require to be in order to undo such evils? England will for certain go on producing its enormity of wealth, without much regard to the negative pole of the social magnet. It may only be expected that its humanity, ever a shining star in its forehead, will exercise a healing and restoring influence over much of the misery unavoidably flowing from its state, and that counteractive moral agencies will go on improving in strength and comprehensiveness. A nation under such circumstances is a curious spectacle. Units make the whole; but units, like the separate members of a coralline community, work on instinctively, seeing little or nothing of the general result produced. A reef rises, before the multiform being at work knows what it is about. How difficult for any one out of the whole, “I assure you, madam," answered the unfortunate then, to affect the case for either good or evil! Only tutor, seeing a storm brewing in Mrs Aylmer's it is sometimes found in the human coral, that wide-threatening brow-" I assure you, Mr Charles was so seers do at length arise and speak, and that their voices come in time to have power, and that new and better courses are accordingly taken for the general interest.

FAMILY MANAGEMENT.

A TALE.

"What has she been doing ?” asked Mrs Aylmer; « something wrong, I have no doubt; but don't be in such a hurry, my darling. Poor child! you are quite out of breath; you will kill yourself with such speed. I thought I had told you, Mr Ramsay," said she, turning round to the embarrassed tutor, "that I do not wish Mr Charles to exert himself in this way, to put him in such a state. It is very odd people cannot attend to what is said to them."

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anxious to come and tell you that he saw Miss William"

"Stop, stop!" interrupted Charles, "I don't want you to tell mamma-I shall tell her myself."

The obsequious tutor was silent, and the spoiled child proceeded to relate how his sister had in a frolic "WHAT can be the reason Harriet and Miss William-seized upon and bound her governess to a tree in the son are so late in returning from their walk?" said Mrs Aylmer to her husband, as they were sitting one November evening in the comfortable library. "What can they be about?" continued the lady, an additional shade of gloom passing over her face, as she watched the approaching shadows of night darkening more and more the room in which they sat. "That girl Harriet keeps the house in a continual state of agitation; I never know what it is to have a moment's peace with her mad-cap pranks.”

Mr and Mrs Aylmer were people of rank and fortune, who resided in the south of England; they had married late in life, and the results of their union were two children, boy and girl. Mrs Aylmer was chiefly remarkable for her capabilities of putting her self into terrific fits of ill-temper, which alarmed and subjugated all around her to fulfil all her behests, and for ruling with strict and unflinching authority over her respectable husband. Mr Aylmer's principal peculiarities were an excessive love of good English dinners, and long comfortable naps after them. Charles Aylmer, the son and heir, was a sickly spoiled boy of fourteen. He was ill-tempered, selfish, cowardly, and mischievous-the darling of his mother, who remitted in his favour the uninterrupted severity she showed to all else the heir of the property, and the sovereign of the household. He was chiefly remarkable for telling tales of his sister; eating a surprising quantity of cakes and sweetmeats; a great love of tyranny, united to a strong sense of personal danger. He had a tutor, who, for L.100 per annum, with a considerable number of physical comforts, was willing to take charge of an unwilling pupil and a disagreeable boy. Harriet Aylmer was fifteen, a fine tall girl, very handsome, very

adjoining wood. A servant was immediately sent to release her, and a search instantly made for the delinquent, far and near. Some one thought of going into her room, where she was found, sitting quietly by the window. By this time the unfortunate governess was released from her situation, and had returned home, with the determination of not staying another day with such a pupil. Pale with anger, she rushed into Mrs Aylmer's presence.

"Madam-Mrs Aylmer" - she gasped, as soon as she found words.

"I know all," interrupted Mrs Aylmer, waving her off with her hand. "Pray, do not repeat things so very unpleasant for a mother's ear; but I must say, Miss Williamson, you must have your pupil under very indifferent command, for her to get to such a pitch."

"Madam," again gasped the ill-treated governess. But it was in vain for her to speak; Mrs Aylmer would not listen to her.

"Well, then, Mrs Aylmer," she at last said, "you will perhaps have the kindness to hear me when I say that, sorry as I may be to leave a house where I have experienced so much kindness and lady-like treatment, I am obliged to decline the honour of any longer conducting the education of your daughter."

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Spare yourself the trouble," interrupted Mrs Aylmer again, with a haughty glance, "for I have long thought of removing Miss Aylmer from your care, and the events of this night have hastened my determination." She rung the bell. "Robert, tell Mrs Jones to bring Miss Aylmer here."

"My dear, shall we not dine first ?" interposed Mr Aylmer, with a timid voice. (He had been sitting for some time looking on in great annoyance at the bustle and turmoil going on around him.) "It is past seven o'clock, and the dinner will be spoiled," he continued, fidgetting in his chair, from a mixture of fear of his wife's anger at the interruption and dread of the

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The simple version of this adventure was as foltheir usual afternoon's walk. Harriet had brought lows:-Miss Williamson and Harriet were taking with her in her arms her little pet Fido, who was seized with an unaccountable whim of keeping up a constant barking. Miss Williamson, who was not in the best of humours, having had a brief interchange of words with Mrs Aylmer, felt very much inclined to vent her ill-humour upon the present company. In no very gentle terms she insisted upon Harriet putting the dog down. Harriet refused, and Miss Williamson seized hold of the dog, and threw him roughly on the ground; poor Fido howled piteously, and limped away. With sparkling eyes and raised colour, Harriet took hold of her pet, and dared Miss Williamson to do it again. The governess was so unmindful of her position as to do it. Harriet said nothing, but not many minutes after, she seized her opportunity, and, being a remarkably strong girl, tied her governess to a tree; she then quietly left her, and going back to where her poor little dog lay really hurt, she took him up in her arms, and went to her own room, where she remained, with dogged firmness, till called upon to account for her conduct.

The next day, Harriet was conveyed in a close chariot by her mamma to a school some fifty miles off, celebrated for the strict seclusion and severe discipline in which the young ladies were kept. Mrs Aylmer, still burning with anger against her daughter, gave such a character of her to Miss Lewis, the head of the establishment, that this lady looked upon the entrance of Harriet into her house with almost the same fear Sheppard, or an officer of the Guards, with a Lovelace and trepidation as she would had an Ogre, a Jack kind of reputation, been presented to her as a boarder. However, seeing Miss Aylmer was of rank and fortune, and that much money, and, perchance, much credit (if she could succeed in changing her into a propriety-loving young lady), was to be gained by her admittance, she consented to receive her under certain severe restrictions, to all which Mrs Aylmer consented, and came away perfectly satisfied that she had introduced her daughter to such discipline "as would make her know herself," as she expressed it," and regret the home she now despised." Miss Lewis was stiff, starched, and a decorum worshipper. She had no idea of imbuing her pupils with the genuine feeling of kindness they ought to have for each other; but she did her best to teach them never to behave ungenteelly to each other, and always to be polite and young-lady-like. She expected from her young ladies that they should know dancing, singing, piano, harp, drawing, French, Italian, all in a young-lady-like manner, and that they should have a certain elementary knowledge of all the other branches of education; that they should make a curtsy on entering a room, and another when they went out, and call each other dear when they spoke to one another; above all, that they should not know the meaning of the word love, or, at all events, if they were so unfortunate as to have this knowledge, they should appear not to know it, and be particularly incensed at the mention of the institution of marriage. Such characteristics, she considered, made a perfect young lady.

The second act in this drama of family management now opens.

Mrs Medcalf was the widow of a naval officer, who on his deathbed had bequeathed to her a modest income, and the guardianship of the orphan son of his dearest friend, whom, in the absence of any family of his own, he had adopted as his son. Mrs Medcalf was the sister of Mr Aylmer, but owing to the great difference between her character and that of her sister-inlaw, and also to the disapprobation she continually expressed of the manner in which her nephew and

niece were brought up, she held very little intercourse with Aylmer House. She knew very little of the children, but had a general impression that they were very spoilt and disagreeable. One dark and stormy night in the month of January, she was sitting over her tea, musing on the approaching college vacation of her ward, William Mansfield-whom she longed to see as much as if he were her own son-when she heard a voice at the hall door begging to see her. There seemed to be some dispute upon the subject, so she rung the bell to know who was there, when the drawing-room door opened, and there entered with the servant the muffled-up figure of a young girl. Mrs Medcalf started; she knew the face, but could not at once recollect it, as the stranger advanced and threw up her veil.

"Aunt Margaret !" at last said our old friend, Harriet Aylmer.

"My niece Harriet !" said Mrs Medcalf, in utter astonishment; "what has brought you here?". and she motioned to the servant to leave the room. "What is the matter?-what brings you here?" she repeated, in an anxious voice.

"I am come to ask you for a home and for a refuge from those who persecute me," said Harriet, with a burning cheek and almost menacing tone;" and if you refuse it me I go away, and no one will ever be troubled with me again."

Mrs Medcalf saw she was dreadfully excited. "Sit down, my poor girl," said she, soothingly, "and tell me what has happened to you-you look dreadfully fatigued and excited; I will do any thing I can for you. Do not be frightened," she continued, observing the sofa shake under the emotion of poor Harriet, who at length burst into such heart-rending tears and sobs, that her aunt thought she would almost fall into convulsions; she untied her bonnet and cloak, gave her some cold water to drink, and, finally, had the pleasure of seeing her restored to more calmness. "These are the first tears I have shed since I left my father's house," said she at length, finding words to utter; "and I was nearly desperate, when your words, the first words of kindness I have heard, quite overcame me." She at once began her story; she related, in clear terms, the misconduct which had caused her dismissal from home, and her being sent with the most disgraceful of reputations to school. There she had had to undergo every kind of disgrace and contumely; she was not allowed to associate with the girls, nor were they permitted even to speak to her; she was always kept apart from every one, and every night was sent for into Miss Lewis's room, where she was accused of every possible fault and misdemeanour, and exhorted to repent of them. Tales of her misconduct at home were daily circulated among the girls, as warnings to avoid the like; and, in fact, every humiliation and mortification were showered upon her. "I was treated as a felon, and as if I had the feelings of a felon, and not those of a young girl like the others," said Harriet, with flushed cheeks; "so at last I could bear it no longer; I thought any thing would be better; and I watched and watched till I made my escape, and came to see if you would take me in; and if you had refused, I would have gone and killed myself," said she with vehemence; "I am sure I would. I had but a few pence in my pocket, as my money and jewels were taken from me, and I have walked fifty miles, sometimes buying a pennyworth

of bread."

Mrs Medcalf shuddered with horror at this relation; she thought with terror of all the dangers her niece's violent temper, and the injudicious treatment to which she had been subjected, might have brought her. She was too sensible a woman to reason with her on her conduct that night, so with soothing words and kind promises she conducted her to her bed; she could scarcely refrain from tears when she saw her swollen and blistered feet, which she got bathed and bandaged, and giving her a composing draught, left her to seek that repose of which she stood so much in need. It was a late hour that night before Mrs Medcalf retired to her room; Harriet's conduct occupied her most anxious thoughts. She was a very superior woman, both in feeling and intellect; and she resolved, if possible, to take charge of her niece. She wrote an earnest and solemn letter to the parents, stating that Harriet was under her roof, and another to Miss Lewis, acquainting her that her former pupil was in safety, and that she need take no further measures for her recapture.

The next morning the aunt went into her niece's room; she found her just awake, very feverish, and evidently very unwell from fatigue and excitement. She sent for medical assistance; it was a week before Harriet was able to leave her bed, and then she was very much paler and thinner. In the meanwhile, Mrs Medcalf left her to the attendance of her trusty maid, and set out herself for Aylmer House. She exerted all her eloquence in representing Harriet's case to her parents, and her whole stock of patience in listening to Mrs Aylmer's animadversions in return. By dint of prophecies of shame and disgrace to the family, if Harriet, by unrelenting rigour, was driven to extremity, and confident promises of amendment if kindness was shown to her, she prevailed upon the mother to give her up to her charge. This Mrs Aylmer was the more readily induced to do, in despite of her jealousy of her sister-in-law's interference in family affairs, as she felt that Harriet's high spirit was too much for even her passionate temper

to curb. She consoled herself for granting the request by remembering that her darling Charles would be only too happy to get rid of his sister for ever. After making, therefore, as many objections as she could muster together, she graciously acceded, and Mrs Medcalf returned content with her mission. When her niece was sufficiently well to bear the news, she told her of her success. Harriet fell at her feet in an ecstacy of joy, and promised for herself much more than she was able to perform. Time passed on. Mrs Medcalf knew she had taken a heavy responsibility upon herself in thus adopting her niece, and that the charge of so wayward and passionate a girl could not be otherwise than a distressing one; and such she found it, for, strive as Harriet would, she could not correct the faults of sixteen years in a few months, and many were the bitter hours passed by her in repentance and regret for having offended her aunt. But what will patience, unwearied kindness, and charity, not effect? Mrs Medcalf laboured hard at her task, and before six months were passed, Harriet looked upon the displeasure of her aunt as her greatest misfortune. But all were not like her aunt; to others she often behaved ill. Her aunt suffered. Harriet was heart-broken, and firmly resolved to do so no more-which resolution she kept, till a temptation too strong to be overcome came in her way. Fortunately this occurred more rarely every day, and Mrs Medcalf looked forward with sanguine hope to the reward of her benevolence. About this time William Mansfield came to pass his college vacations with his guardian, before setting out on a three years' tour on the continent. He knew Mrs Medcalf had the disagreeable Miss Aylmer staying with her, who was known in all the neighbourhood as a mischievous vixen, and whose reputation had been more than usually severely handled, as she had no one to defend her. It was therefore with no pleasurable feelings that he looked forward to having his tête-à-tête conversations with his second mother, whom he loved most affectionately, disturbed by her presence. When he did see her, he was very much surprised to see so tall and striking a looking girl; and could scarcely believe that one who seemed so likely to grow up into a lovely and elegant woman, could really be so odious as she had been described. But, alas! these first favourable impressions soon wore off. Harriet was very apt to take antipathies, and she instantly disliked and felt affronted at the supercilious and slim collegian, who seemed to wish to keep her at such a distance, and to look with contempt on all she did and said. She was, besides, very shy, and consequently awkward, never being accustomed to see strangers. She was at one moment silly and bashful, at another rudely familiar; and she was not at the slightest pains to conceal that she looked upon his room as better than his company, to use her own more expressive than elegant phrase. As for William, he was disappointed to see his solitary interviews with Mrs Medcalf intruded on; and, we are afraid, looked upon Harriet as little better than a disagreeable interloper.

It was with these sentiments they parted, and Mrs Medcalf felt William's disappointment as not the least of her trials, for he had been accustomed to look upon her house as his undivided home. She was sorry also to see two persons, who were likely often to meet under her roof, and whom she felt would soon be equally dear to her, show so little mutual good-will.

The morning after he left, while Harriet and her aunt were sitting at work together, Harriet opened the conversation by observing, "I am glad William Mansfield is gone; he is a very disagreeable, proud, conceited man. I wonder, aunt, you are so very fond of him."

"Even granting that all you say of my poor William is correct, which I should be deeply grieved to believe," answered her aunt, smiling, "I should perhaps still love him. You know I love you, and many people say you are very disagreeable, proud, and conceited; but I do not think so," she continued more gravely, observing the colour mounting to Harriet's temples, while the tears suffused her eyes-" I should be sorry to do so. As for William Mansfield, he is a most amiable, benevolent, and liberal-minded young man; and let me tell you, Harriet, I did not think you showed either delicacy of feeling or gratitude to me, in gratifying your own prejudiced opinions, instead of remembering all I had told you of his worth. You behaved to him with great rudeness and unkindness, which I did not think you would have done towards one whom you know I look upon as a dear and beloved son, nor do you show generosity in speaking ill of him to me when I am overwhelmed with sorrow at his departure." Mrs Medcalf looked so seriously displeased that Harriet was miserable; she burst into a flood of tears.

"Ah! I behave ill to every one," said she, as she hastily left the room. The lesson was severe, but necessary; it never was repeated, nor again called for. Two years have passed since this little scene. Har riet is eighteen, a clever, accomplished, talented girl, exceedingly lovely and graceful; perhaps there is too much vivacity in her movements, too much fire in the rapid glance of her rich hazel eye, for the strict propriety-chart of a fashionable young lady; but no one, even Miss Lewis herself, could fail to admire her open brow, beaming look, and the ingenuous smile of her half-opened lips, showing the pearly teeth beneath she was Mrs Medcalf's greatest source of happiness

:

and pride; she introduced her to the small but select society she was accustomed to see herself, and looked upon her as the greatest ornament of the circle. As for Harriet, love is a faint term to express all she felt for her aunt; she knew she owed not merely her present happiness, but perhaps even her existence, to her kindness-I cannot more aptly express her feelings, than to say she flourished in her presence and languished in her absence, and never felt thoroughly happy but in her company. Harriet had also been home several times; and though these visits had at first been hard to bear, no self-control now was too difficult for her to undertake to gratify her aunt. All the energy she had once shown to commit mischief and folly was now expended in obtaining control over herself, and giving pleasure to this generous friend. She had succeeded so well by her patience and gentleness, that even her lady mother was softened in her favour, and graciously contemplated having her home again, now that she was likely to do honour to the family name; but Charles expressed such decided disapprobation against this step, that, fortunately for the aunt and niece, the scheme was abandoned; as for her papa, he loved her as much as he was capable of doing, and much more than he did either his lady or his heir. Harriet's affectionate heart was often gratified by receiving from him kind letters and numerous presents, which showed he did not forget her; and when the family paid Mrs Medcalf a visit, Harriet endeavoured to make up, by her attentive solicitude, the trouble she had once given them. The absent traveller often wrote to them; gradually Harriet began to look upon him with the sisterly affection and interest which she felt to be due to the adopted son of her benefactress, and which his amiable character really deserved; she invariably called him cousin; and he on his side did not forget her he often enclosed a few kind words for her, and sometimes sent her different specimens of the manufactures of the country he was passing through. It was impossible for Mrs Medcalf to write to him so often and familiarly, and not introduce the subject of her niece's improvement; and though William suspected the account to be slightly exaggerated, he still felt there must be much good to call forth such ardent praise.

"Aunt," said Harriet one morning, "I should like to thank my cousin William for his last present to me; shall I write a few words to him in your letter?" Her aunt consented; and thence sprung up a correspondence between the two pretended cousins, which did more to unfold their real character to each other than a year's fashionable acquaintance would have done. In happiness and content the time passed over, and now was the term of the traveller's absence nearly expired: they expected him from day to day.

One bright summer evening that Mrs Medcalf had gone out to visit a neighbouring cottage, and Harriet was alone in the drawing-room, a ring was heard at the door, and a strange voice inquiring for Mrs Medcalf, Harriet advanced to meet the stranger, whom she believed to be some casual acquaintance. The door opened, and a tall young man of about fiveand-twenty stood before her; his naturally pale complexion embrowned by travel; a good-humoured smile played upon his lips, while his dark eyes gazed earnestly upon those of his wondering companion.

"You don't know me, I see, Miss Aylmer," he said. After a moment's reflection, the truth flashed upon her that tall manly figure was that of the slim, pale collegian she had seen three years ago-it was William Mansfield. With a vivid blush, she placed her hand in his. "Is that all the welcome you give your affectionate cousin and old friend?" said he, as he kissed her blushing cheek; "remember what a long time I have been absent, and how delighted I am to see you all again." Mrs Medcalf was sent for; she could not sufficiently admire his manly appearance and intelligent conversation; and they separated that night mutually pleased and happy. Harriet admired the liberal and enlightened sentiments expressed by William, his benevolence, and gentle manners. William thought Harriet the loveliest girl he had ever seen; and when he fell asleep, visions of her open brow and laughing eye were mingled with the kind smile and loving kiss of her aunt. As for Mrs Medcalf, she admired them both, and thought within herself ""Twere a pity so pretty a pair should ever be parted."

The intimacy of the cousins every day became greater; William, for worlds, would not give up the relationship, it afforded him so many opportunities of showing love and friendship which pass current among relations. One day, some months after his return, as they were walking out together, Harriet was conversing upon a theme she never tired of her beloved aunt. Gradually she began to relate the adventures of her early youth; William had never heard them before; he listened earnestly, and could not sufficiently admire the truthful ingenuousness with which she related her youthful follies. "Where should I now be?" said she, as she concluded her tale, looking up with enthusiasm in his face, " if my aunt had not taken pity upon me?"

"Certainly not in my arms," said the daring lover, clasping her to his breast with an insinuating smile. "Tell me, Harriet," said he, in a voice which he meant to be irresistible, " will you not make up for being so naughty a child by being a good girl, and promise to love a modest, well-disposed youth like myself for the rest of your days?"

Harriet broke away from him, but it was in vain to feign displeasure; she did not feel it. She again gave

him her hand, with the half-serious condition that he would behave better another time. Before they returned home she had promised to be his wife, if her aunt approved of their union. Mrs Medcalf did approve of it; and before another month was passed, William was pleased because he had won Harriet for his wife; Harriet was pleased because she was married to the man she loved; Charles was pleased because he now had Aylmer House to himself, without fear of intrusion; Mr and Mrs Aylmer were pleased because their daughter had married a man with L.5000 per annum; and the good aunt was pleased because evil had been changed into good.

OCCASIONAL NOTES.

EMIGRATION.

WE are constantly receiving newspapers from the different colonies, and also papers respecting the colonies published in London, and the great broad fact appears on the face of all, that the colonies, with scarcely an exception, are greatly in want of labourers. "Send us labourers," is the cry of the Canadians, the Australians, and the settlers of the Cape and of New Zealand. The demand is heard from one end of the colonial world to the other, and the most flattering temptations are held out for complying with it. At a meeting held at Niagara-called in the Niagara Chronicle "The Great Emigration Meeting"-which took place on the 7th of January last, a long speech was delivered on the subject by Dr Rolph, in which he speaks of the exertions made by the inhabitants of Montreal to render emigrants comfortable on their arrival, to relieve them if sick, or in a state of destitution, and to forward them to districts where their labour is required. He adds, that at the many public works now in a state of advancement in the provinces, there is a steady demand for mechanics and labourers; and that as many as "one thousand ablebodied labourers are at this moment urgently required on the Welland Canal."

Of the demand for labourers at Sydney we need here say nothing, as we lately gave publicity to the letter of a "Magistrate of the Territory," mentioning that the demand was excessive. We turn, then, to the Cape of Good Hope, which, from all we have heard, has been steadily but unostentatiously advancing in a career of prosperity. Such, we are informed, is the demand for labourers at the Cape, that the inhabitants are thankful to receive and hire African slaves, who have been liberated by British cruisers while on their way to America. But they tell us they would infinitely prefer white and trained servants from the home country. At a late public meeting on the subject at Cape Town, it was resolved to raise funds by subscription to defray the expense of bringing emigrants from England. The temptations held out are-a delightful climate, meat at 2d. a-pound, and a hearty welcome to all steady and respectable persons willing to make themselves useful.

We have thus sufficiently drawn attention to the circumstance of the colonies being, according to their own showing, in want of labourers; and the point to which we now advert is the extraordinary degree of negligence on the part of the colonists themselves, in actually making known and getting what they want. If they wish to see a host of working men with their families arrive on their shores, why do they not take some trouble to make working men acquainted with that important fact, and also tell them how they are to get out? If every thing be true that the colonial and emigration journals say, the case stands thus :There, at a distance of a few thousand miles across the sea, are immensely large countries, as fertile as the heart of man could desire, yet comparatively destitute of persons to work upon them; and here, on the other hand, is a country overcrowded with population, with a redundancy of labourers, almost starving for lack of employment. Does it not, then, appear somewhat strange that the colonists should take no intelligible means of supplying themselves with these spare labourers? Every colonial newspaper teems with accounts of "great emigration meetings," at which resolutions are passed declaring that thousands of men are required, and in some instances arrangements seem to be made for paying the passage of individuals; but beyond these public declamations little seems to be accomplished, and the process of emigration remains year after year in the same meagre, unsatisfactory condition. We dare say the "Great Emigration Meeting" at Niagara thought it had done a vast deal, by its powerful resolutions and speeches, to promote emigration from the United Kingdom; and yet, we ask, what labouring man here knows any thing at all of the matter, except perhaps what we are now telling him? Three years ago, we copied into our paper the account of a similar meeting at Montreal, at which it seemed to be the resolution to establish agents in this country for the purpose of receiving and landing forward emigrants. Our brief notice brought dozens of letters from poor people, inquiring where these agencies were situated. We could not tell; and are pretty certain that no such agencies were ever established. This is a sample of the slovenly manner in which the colonies set about the great business of helping themselves to servants. Instead of opening fixed establishments in this country, to advise and help forward emigrants, they perhaps send a person to lecture on the subject. We do not want lecturers. The public

are already sufficiently alive to emigration, and only want some practical advice, assurance of good treatment, and assistance. The inhabitants of Montreal, greatly to their honour, have, it seems, organised a humane system of assisting the poorer class of emigrants; but who in Great Britain knows that such is the case? In this as in every thing else, the colonists appear to labour under an impression that what they do is heard of through the medium of their newspapers, which, we can assure them, is a fallacy. The people of Great Britain and Ireland seldom, by any chance, see a colonial paper, and know nothing of what is going on in the colonies. The home newspapers, they must know, seldom notice any colonial movement unless it be of a warlike or political character. The opening of new ports and roads, public improvements, establishment of societies, progress of cultivation and agriculture, and such matters, remain unnoticed, from an idea, perhaps, that the quoting of paragraphs on these points would excite little interest in British readers. For example, in the speech of Dr Rolph, above alluded to, we observe a number of interesting particulars respecting the social progress of Canada within the last two years, but we doubt if a single newspaper, not expressly colonial, will notice them. This remarkable silence of the general newspaper press on colonial matters was exemplified on the occasion of the outbreak in Canada a few years ago. Nobody had been prepared to hear of any such uproar; and while civil war was raging in a department of the empire, the people of the home country could not comprehend what it was about. We mention this only to show that the colonies should adopt some more effective means than now exists of making all reasonable complaints and demands heard in this country. Whenever they have a desire to operate distinctly on public opinion, they must appeal directly to the people through the medium of our newspaper press. But to make their designs respecting emigration known, something more is desirable. The great mass of persons whose services are most required in the colonies, see no newspapers. Ploughmen, shepherds, day-labourers, men with families living in remote situations, and female domestic servants, form an understratum in society into which the products of the daily press do not commonly penetrate. The persons in such situations are thrown entirely on their own glimmering conceptions of what they have to expect by emigration, or they rely on the advice of such individuals as they imagine will set them on the right track.

Do not let it be supposed that we advocate a sweeping system of emigration. We advise every man to stay at home who possesses a decent livelihood, or the intrepidity to push his way by skill and industry. Our observations are directed to the colonists, who are making such an incessant clamour about the want of labourers, and to the great number of labourers who feel desirous of emigrating. We have thought considerately on the subject, and it appears to us that the process of emigration will never be any thing else than the scramble it now is, until arrangements of the following nature are organised, and fully and fairly acted upon :

1. Every colony which wishes labourers must, on its own side of the water, organise means to receive and employ all who arrive seeking employment-have plenty of lands ready surveyed for emigrants to buy in lots, if they want to settle in that way-and, above all, have a person in waiting on the arrival of every ship, to tell the people what they are to do; so that, in short, a man would arrive with a perfect confidence as to his being at once satisfactorily provided for.

2. Each colony must organise means equally as effective here. It must send a properly commissioned agent (who should be backed, or recognised as trustworthy, by the colonial and home governinent), to establish an emigration office in every large town, as, for instance, in London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Cork, &c. This office should resemble an open shop, be furnished with maps and plans of the colony, and descriptive pamphlets and papers explaining what classes of emigrants are required. The keeper of the office should be an intelligent and conversable person, who would take pains to explain, in a friendly way, every desired particular-tell exactly how the proposing emigrant should proceed, which port he should sail from, and, if possible, put him in communication with the skipper. Sub-offices in remote localities might be opened in connexion with these principal establishments.

3. It should be part of the office-keeper's duty to publish advertisements in the newspapers, and also by handbills, defining the objects of his mission, and stating his readiness to furnish every species of information to applicants. The handbills should be posted up in most towns and villages throughout the country; and the language employed in them ought to partake of the simplicity of common speech.

If the various colonies could unite to appoint a common agency, much expense might be spared; but we fear that is quite hopeless, and would therefore

*Within the last few years, the growing importance of the colonies has called into existence a class of periodical publications, chiefly newspapers, in London, which are devoted either to colonial topics generally, or to the concerns of single colonies in particular. Among these we may notice, as standing at the head of the whole, The Colonial Gazette," which, we have heard, has been of considerable use in schooling the colonists with regard to their political and social relations.

advise each to start on its own account in the first place. It will be observed that we say nothing of paying for transmission; that must be left to the capacity of the colony for raising funds. Very distant colonies, possessing means, might instruct their agent to pay the whole, the half, or the quarter, of passagemoney, according to circumstances. Canada, in our opinion, could get an abundance of hands, merely by the organisation we point out, because numbers of men are able to pay for themselves, and many in a state of destitution would be assisted by parishes, subscriptions, and private friends. As government, according to all accounts, is about to establish a better system of marine transport for emigrants, it cannot be doubted that, by the simple plan we have hinted at, the colonies would speedily be in possession of labourers commensurate with their capital. Those states, likewise, in the North American union, which are at present desirous of procuring free labour (Virginia, we believe, for one), might advantageously follow the same method, which, by proper management, would, we seriously believe, be successful beyond any assignable limits.

ANAGRAMS.

AN anagram consists in the transposition of the letters of any word, or set of words, so as to form, by a new arrangement, some other term or terms, having an application, of one kind or another, to the sense of the original words. The art of forming anagrams was a species of literary trifling so much in fashion in the days of Elizabeth and her successors the Stuarts, that the learned Camden did not disdain to compose an essay on the subject, in which he lays down the laws to be followed in the composition of the anagram. The precise in practice, he says, changed not one letter, with the exception of the aspirate h alone, which, like the Greeks, who merely symbolised it by a

comma, they conceived to have no proper title to be called or used as a letter. The less strait-laced anagrammatists, however, took other liberties, such as that of substituting u for v, c for k, s for z, and the like. Camden himself liked the anagram exceedingly, as yielding "a delightful comfort and pleasant motion to honest minds;" and the more difficult the anagram the better, as it is then, he says, 66 a whetstone of patience to them that shall practise it; for some have been seen to bite their pen, scratch their heads, bend their brows, bite their lips, beat the board, tear their paper, when the names were fair for somewhat, and they caught nothing therein." All this seemed to our antiquary a very charming sort of perplexity.

Anagrammatising is of very ancient date, having been one of the ways by which the mystical religionists of old locked up their secrets, and endeavoured to throw a sanctity around the names of peculiar persons and things. The Jewish cabalists directly professed the art of themura, that is, of changing or transposing terms to discover a hidden signification in them. This is precisely the art of making anagrams. From Noah's name they made grace, for example, in Hebrew; and in Messiah they found he shall rejoice. In the Cassandra of Lycophron, a poem written about 300 years before Christ, we find the first name of Ptolemy Philadelphus transposed from Ptolemais into Apo melitos, "from" or "out of honey" in which case the second o would be obtained by placing 'O before the name, making it "the" Ptolemy, as being a generic appellation. The name of the same king's wife, Arsinoe, was anagrammatised into Eras ion, "Juno's violet." Other ancient writers, Eustachius among the rest, give examples of the art as used among the Greeks. To come a little farther down the mount of past time, we find Friar Bacon, according to a comdients, charcoal, under an anagram. As might be mon custom, concealing one of his gunpowder ingreexpected, the French were early and long attached to this sort of badinage; so much so, that Louis XIII. had a regular anagrammatist pensioned at 1200 livres fortune by working out a single happy transposition a-year. In France, a man sometimes even made his of a king's or great man's name. Thus, all France Valoys, whose name was converted into De façon suis rung with the anagram on the monarch, François de royal, indicating him to be indeed "of regal strain." Marie Touchet, favourite of Charles IX., would not allow the lucky fellow to go unrewarded who discovered her fascinations to be indicated in the very

name which she bore, and which says, Je charme tout, "I charm all;" and a vacant clerkship, a sinecure without doubt, would to a certainty fall to the no less fortunate man who found the chancellor Louis de Boucherat to have been baptismally and patronymitold that he est la bouche de roi, "is the mouth-piece cally designated for his high office, because his name of the sovereign."

His

Even Calvin deigned to anagrammatise. adopted Latin title, Alcuinus, is a very simple transposition of Calvinus. Nor did the grave reformer disdain to enter into an anagrammatical contest with Rabelais, in whose Latinised name Rabelaesius, he found the words rabie laesus, "bitten by madness." Rabelais was not the man to let a shaft of this kind be aimed at him without a return, and accordingly, using some liberty with the lexicographically-jumbled letters 1, j, v, and u, he found in Calvin's name the old French vulgarism jan-cul, which casts a disagreeable reflection on the person of the Reformer