I hold to be an emanation from the great fount of divine intelligence, after its subtle and volatile spirit receiving, as it were, a corporeal form, has been rendered visible to every eye by the invention of letters, and imperishable by means of printing, may be diffused in the form of a book, through all time and all space; may be preserved as a fresh and perfect portrait of an individual's mind for thousands of years after the marble or brazen images of his body shall have crumbled into dust? Marvellous and sublime is the nature, stupendous and almost omnipotent is the power of a book! It is a sort of material soul, a visible, tangible, indestructible, intellect, living and yet dead, dead and yet living, speaking at the same moment to the four quarters of the earth, and yet silent as the unknown grave in which, perchance, its author sleeps; spread throughout the whole world, and yet compact enough to be carried in an infant's hand. Strange that the signs of ideas, stamped upon the perishable pulp of rags, should be more enduring than

adamant or the earth-rooted rock!

Oh, Sir,

books are sacred, are awful things. They are the spirits of the departed, visiting us, not to surprise and terrify, but to guide, to comfort, and protect."

"Riddle-me-riddle-me ree! What sort o' lingo do ye call this? Wont do, Gale, wont do. Your books must be bad spirits at all events, else 'ee wouldn't be in such bad spirits thyself. Had 'ee there boy, hey!"

"You only see me when I am removed from them; if I am gloomy, it is because I am deprived of that cheering light which perhaps shines more intensely upon me than upon others."

"Like enough; cause it comes in through a crack in your skull. 'Spose that's the reason they called 'ee Crazy Middleton at Cambridge. Had 'ee again there; hey, hick, hick! Lookee, Gale. Listened patiently to all your rigmarole, now you must listen to mine. Told 'ee I wanted to have a long chat with 'ee; but fill glass first. What! not drink any more!

Lord love 'ee, poor boy! did hope to make a three bottle man of 'ee, if couldn't make any thing else."

The baronet tossed off his bumper, and immediately refilled his glass, which was indeed his invariable habit, when, drawing his chair nearer to his son's, and hemming loudly and lustily, as if to clear his voice for a long oration, he thus proceeded.

“Look 'ee, my dear boy, Meg and I,—call her Meg now, 'cause she ai'nt here,-Meg and I have had a deal o'talk about 'ee; both very unhappy to find 'ee so glum and dumpish, and we've settled it's all because 'ee haven't got any business or occupation. Every young man ought to be employed. Idleness root of all evil. Devil tempts other men, but idlers tempt him. No pains no gains. Bad day's work when 'ce refused to come into the firm of Middleton, Thwaytes, and Hobson. Only chap in all England that wouldn't have jumped mast-high at such an offer."

"Of this, Sir, I am perfectly aware, and I hope not ungrateful for your intended kind

ness; but I stated my reasons so fully at the time"

"Reasons, sirrah! there can be no reasons for that which is utterly unreasonable. In another year your cousin, Caleb Ball, will take place meant for you, and come perhaps to be one of the first men in the city when you're nobody. Amazing clever chap that Caleb : wonderful! Understands business, and sticks to it like a leech. Always first and last in the counting-house. Don't know what we should do without him. But that's neither here nor there; talking of you, not him. Sent 'ee to college when 'ee decided on not being a merchant, and had fine accounts, though they did call 'ee Crazy Middleton, that 'ee got prizes, and came to be first wrangler. Don't wrangle much at home; good-tempered enough for that matter. Took for granted, after I went to such an expense, that yee'd follow some profession; but deuce a bit; here thee beest, running down to Sussex, to wander in the woods and spout poetry to crows and pigeons; or else coming up to Portland Place, only to mope over books,

till thee'st as down in the mouth as the root of my tongue. A murrain take all the musty rubbish! Why casn't make thyself useful and respectable? Know thee'st got enough to live on; but what of that? Any thing's better than idleness. Why couldn't'st be a doctor or a surgeon

"To be a butcher of human carcases, a dissector of dead bodies, and a tormentor of living ones; to be conversant with misery, anguish, and putrifying sores; to pour drugs of which I know little, into a frame of which I know less; to see none but sufferers, to breathe for ever the loathsome atmosphere of sick rooms, to be a daily hoverer over the bed of death, not always free from the consciousness, and never from the apprehension, that I may have shortened the life which I have been paid for prolonging-horrible!"

66

Fudge! soon get reconciled to it; musn't be too fine for use; mouse in mittens catches no cat. Will 'ee be a counsellor then ?"

"What! to live amidst the rottenness and abomination of our moral nature; to be let