so pare that no companion on earth was found fitting for her; where she trod sprang sweet flowers, and when she sang the birds paused to listen; but withal the little maiden was lonely, till one day a white cloud closed round her, and bore her to fairyland! There was a story also of two Norse princes, Aro and Asmund, who fought many battles side by side, and, in pure love, made a compact that when either died the other should be buried with him. Aro was slain, and Asmund was entombed with him alive. Full one century after, a reckless Swedish rover, in defiance of gods and men, opened the sepulchre, when, with cries and clashing of swords and clanging of steel, Asmund, fully armed, rushed on him. His tale was short-he had been one hundred years combating the goule in the body of his brother; and the finale was perfectly satisfactorythey were both honourably and peacefully buried. Then Katy Ross and her nameless vase and its nameless contents-what a mysterious and unfortunate beverage! Most certainly the experiments of Winkler and Muschenbroek with the Leyden jar will never furnish anything half so satisfactory! But where are those aged chroniclers? All passed or passing away. Dear old ladies, willing to tell long pretty stories to little children, are a race nearly extinct. The present generation will make wiser old women, doubtless -more philosophical, more scientific-but that delightful experience in supernatural affairs, the boast of their progenitures, will be a sealed book to them. They will edify the little ones that (some time hence) may gather around at twilight to listen to grandmamma, with the variations of electric currents, instead of the gambols of Robin Goodfellow-with voyages to the north pole, instead of memoirs of fairyland-and with the discoveries of Hansteen and Halley, in place of the less erudite investigations of Moll o' the Marsh, who travelled nine miles to a witch cave, with a plaster on each eye, and a plug in each ear, to guard against the fascinations of the unearthlies who strove to intercept her. A rare spirit was that Moll o' the Marsh, and her zeal for knowledge rivalled Otto Guericke's. But little children must be wise now, and learn all about oxygen and hydrogen, and leave alone such nonsensenonsense so congenial to the first bright gush of fancy and feeling. In the mania for storing the memory, and prematurely ripening the judgment, it seems forgotten that there are any other faculties. They have enough matterof-fact books, of people just like themselves, only worse sometimes than they can well conceive; there are contrivances for teaching them mathematics and philosophy, and all the technicalities of all the ologies, in short, for manufacturing them into little men and women; but the poetry of that poetical period fares like flowers trampled down by the foot of the husbandman, who goes forth to plant something more profitable, it is true, yet after all, these flowers make a garden of life. Feelings and affections, not judgment and reasoning, are the peculiarly beautiful traits of childhood; and one burst of enthusiasm at the unwavering justice meted out in a fairy tale is worth, even in a moral point of view, a chronological recital of all the crimes of all the Roman emperors. of the dim twilight time, and not less in the ice gemmed trees and snowy robes of winter. It is sad to think that there are thousands, whose feet have yet scarcely pressed the threshold of existence, to whom all this is for ever nothing, or worse than nothing; to whom, from youth to age, the glance of the first daybeam is but the unwelcomed harbinger of renewed toil and wretchedness, and whose weary bosoms ask of the most glorious sunset only repose and forgetfulness; who find no perfume in the flower, and no blithe note in the skylark, simply because they lack the capabilities of such impressions. And it is difficult to conceive them beings of the same race with, and surrounded by, the same world which has aroused in the poet the most sublime conceptions and the most thrilling images, and imprinted on his heart, to be transferred to his pages, pictures of glory, and beauty, and grandeur almost superhuman. In the early pursuits of those whose brilliant creative powers in their maturity towered pre-eminent over their fellow-men, we find them not conning book lore of antecedent and consequent, beyond their comprehension, nor (according to late book-making) accumulating isolated facts, till the mind more resembles some rubbish-crammed garret than a storehouse judiciously filled for future use; but they knelt to nature, in the breeze of morning, by the rippling of a stream, or the budding of a plant; or roved with elf and fairy through those regions of the wild and wonderful, whence thought drew strength for her afterflights. Is there not pleasure, reader, from first to last, in imagination? Who prates of its pains, and the sufferings of genius, and sensibility, and nerves? It hath an antidote for suffering, and it can be taught the art of distilling honey, not poison, from the smallest object. Imagination, too, hath a fearful power. Unlike memory and judgment, it asks no long, patient process to give it strength for an emergency; but oft-times, even as torrents of water have gushed from the bosom of the earth, so hath it burst forth, when least expected, spreading desolation and dismay. For in what have those fearful revolutions of kingdoms and states, which history recounts, most frequently had their origin, but in the excited imaginations of the multitude? Some few daring leaders, in order to compass a purpose, address themselves not to the sense, or conscience, or judgment, or even love of the populace; but by a few bold strokes they rouse their imaginations to exaggerate endured evils or anticipated benefits, until reason is cast from her throne, and they who raised the storm tremble and are aghast at its violence. And it is confirmation of this, that the nation of Europe to which universal suffrage has assigned the most ideal temperament, has had its annals most often stained by these misguided outbursts. rise like a demon in the darkness, and steal away the last ray of light. As with nations, so with individuals. There are dark regions in which imagination, escaping from the guidance of will, may rove, and gather to the soul blighted flowers and discordant sounds, and bitterness for all the pleasant ways of life. And there are times in the lives of all, when, compassed by real evils, we would fain for a brief space at The pleasures of imagination! a gifted poet has made least fly from their saddening influence, and when, unless them the theme of his strain, and shall the less gifted count this faculty has been long trained, we call on it in vain to them as nothing? and, to provide for their abundance, aid the attempt; while, on the other hand, though seldom shall not materials be early gathered from that inexhaust-moving before, it is oft-times ready on such occasions to ible source, the great storehouse of nature? The great attention which has been awakened within a few years past to the natural sciences, if its influence can be made to extend to the tyro in learning, will operate on these pleasures. There is that in nature to which a responsive string in the heart of man echoes back its sweetest music; but for this it is necessary that they be early tuned in unison; that the ear be tutored to catch the glad strains of the singing-bird, the murmur of the waterfall, or the deepened roar of old ocean; that the eye be guided to the golden glories of day and the shining host of midnight; to the quiet landscape, the rude rock, and the lofty mountainand that thought learn to live, move, and have its being in the deep stillness of the leafy forest, in the holy hush Imagination! it is a gift of the Creator, like other five talents, to be rendered ten; and its pleasures, reader, are neither few nor small, much less to be counted lightly in the estimate of human happiness. In childhood, in manhood, in old age, in solitude and in society, it casts over all a halo or a gloom, more or less intense as it has been cherished and guided, or left to inaction and decay. The eloquence of the orator and the charm of the poet are but the perfectedness of that faculty whose first stirrings are that love of the marvellous and delight in the invisible world which, in youth, come o'er us like a summer dream,' and which may be nearly eradicated or more deeply rooted by education and circumstances. It is an impulse of one and the same spirit which chains us in infancy to the wonders of Aladdin's lamp, and influenced by which Goethe gravely relates to us a vision which disclosed to him, in a remote glen near Drusenheim, events that were eight years afterwards realised. If all these yearnings after the strange and unknown are to be accounted only as mementoes of human folly, how much do they subtract from the sum of human wisdom? But they have another view; their source is that thirst for something beyond mere corporeal existence, which ever points the little turbid stream of life toward that vast ocean into which it must one day fall. In vain does the gloomy ascetic paint imagination only as a demon to be crushed, and the pleasures of imagination but as will-o'-wisp lights which lure only to betray; and vainly does the utilitarian join, and call on reason to drive these phantom loves from the brain: they have a well. spring deep beyond the reach of reason-a strong attrac tion toward that unseen sphere whence the spirit came, and to which it will return. NEGRO RAFFLE. The heart finds lessons thickly strewn around our household graves! Here many lone and loving hearts have heaved the holy Or sorrow-started tear-drop dimm'd the lustre of the eye But who, 'mid earth's gay glittering halls, the music, and the dance, Would linger with such grateful thoughts, or argument To advance yield the palm of joy to these, must e'en be folly's slave, For better wisdom, brighter joy, beams from the household grave! Those sculptured slabs, that chronicle the sleepers' names Is my tour through the Southern States (says a correspondent of the 'Louisville Journal'), I have met with many amusing incidents, but do not remember anything that created so great an excitement, for the time being, as a 'negro raffle,' in the town of —, in the state of Mississippi. Mr. the owner of the boy, having a note to pay that day, and not having the wherewith to do it, was compelled to do what he gladly would not have done. The boy to be raffled was a smart, intelligent lad, of about eighteen years of age. He went by the name of Bill. There were eighty chances, with three dice, at ten dollars per chance. I was present when the affair came off; there remained one chance, which I took and gave to Bill, upon the condition that he would throw the dice himself, and 'shake like oxen.' Bill rolled his eyes in an astonished and astonishing manner, and after a bearty wha-wha-wha! in which he displayed two fright- But who would reason thus, I ween, must stranger be to ful rows of ivory, opening a mouth like the break of day from east to west,' with a low bow, said, 'I'll try, massa.' As may be supposed, the scene became highly exciting. 6 The rafiling commenced. Bill looked on, unconcerned at anything but the idea of leaving his old master. When the chances were all raffled off but the last, Bill took the box. Previously to throwing, however, he was offered a hundred dollars for his chance, the highest throw yet made being 45, which stood 'a tie' between two individuals; but Bill was no compromise man;' he refused the offer, saying, 'De whole hog or noffin,' and made his first throw, which was 13, his second throw was 16. Bill stopped, scratched his head, threw again, and up came 18. It was declared that Bill was 'high and free;' and such a shout I never heard in my life. Bill hardly knew what to do with himself. His success induced him to try another speculation of the same sort, believing that he could do, as a free man, as much as he had done before: he proposed to set himself up again in a raffle, and, as he had won before, he thought it would be no more than fair that he should put the price at six hundred dollars this time. The chances were soon taken, Bill reserving bat one chance to himself. He pocketed five hundred and ninety dollars, and the sport again commenced. Bill's original owner and himself were the two highest again, and, in throwing off, Bill lost. It proved a very fortunate speculation for Bill and his master both. The master had made eight hundred dollars clear, and Bill had cleared five hundred dollars, and remained with his kind master. They started for home together, the master declaring that no money could induce him to part with Bill again, unless he was willing to leave, but promised him, if he would be as faithful to him as he had always been, until he was twenty-one, he should have his freedom. They were both well contented, and every one present was satisfied that he had got his money's worth. below, May seem to many dull and tame-worth written as on snow, have flown, And former worth and virtue lie unheeded and unknown; thought, For much-loved mem'ries of the dead, with tend'rest feelings fraught, crave Live long within the heart's embrace, in trifles that will Pure off rings for that altar-throne-rear'd on the household grave! The grave, as casket, holds as dear earth's loves and loving ones, The while to us Time's ocean flows, or Life's dim sand- A father's or a mother's bones may crumble into dust, waves Preserve the household sanctuary, and scatter oft around To wake to songs of ecstasy our golden harps in heaven, And far beyond where Jordan's tide Time's furthest cavern We'll meet once more in family tie-re-knit in household EASY SAM; " WHATEVER is worth doing, is worth doing well.' This is an axiom so often enforced as to render it trite and commonplace; yet, while theoretically recognised, it is seldom practically exerted. It is like one of those duties that no one ever disputes, but few ever do-moral obligations admitted but omitted. Now, as the principle implied in our axiom is by no means unimportant, and as the consequences of any particular line of conduct are much more impressive than mere abstract denunciation-as the living specimen is more effective than the dead letter-we would try a little practical illustration. shade; and, truth to say, the 'lentus in umbra' suited Sam's docile disposition uncommonly well. Ernest was never satisfied with his own productions until it could be said, it is very well done; 'very well,' in the abstract, he scouted as much as very badly. This peculiarity accompanied them in all their amusements, and was just as clearly discernible in their chosen occupations as their demanded duties. When Easy Sam made an indifferent drawing, he was content to patch it here, and shade it there, and make it do; when Ernest was unsuccessful in a similar attempt, he put it in the fire, and made another. When Easy Sam tilled his little garden, he satisfied himself with raking in the weeds; Ernest stooped down and pulled them out. Trifles!' you say; 'what matters the different conduct of a couple of schoolboys?' True; but trifles not only 'make up the sum of human life,' as sings the poet, they also form the great medium of moral education. We learn, indeed, much from the great events of history, but much more from the commonplace occurrences around us. In the trivialities alluded to, we may trace, on the one hand, the elements of excellence; on the other, the germs of a vapid and spiritless mediocrity. Easy Sam was destined to the medical profession; and, when he left school, he was accordingly sent to walk the hospitals. Walking the hospitals,' we know, often comprehends the whole art and mystery of drinking porter and smoking cigars; but Sam could not drink porter, because it made his head ache, nor smoke cigars, because they choked him; so he was forced to study, and as he was also, like many dull people, studiously inclined, he managed to pass his examination, and became licensed to dose people secundem_artem. The very intelligent men, indeed, who presided at his examinations, were heard to agree that Sam would never set the Thames a-fire; but, as such incendiary propensities were anything but natural to Sam's disposition, the prediction gave him no concern whatever. Though doctors are proverbially allowed to differ, they agreed that Sam had passed his examination very well (we do not mean the short, emphatic, decided 'very well,' but the long, lingering, modulated very-well). He passed, and went down to his native town to show his skill. There dwelt a certain man in a certain town, both of which, for certain reasons, shall be nameless; the chief of which reasons, however, is, that any man, in any town, to whom the character applies, may take it to himself. This man was a particularly amiable, inoffensive personage never troubling himself with the squabbles of the vestry, or wrangling about the petty politics of the town. He didn't care, not he, whether the new pump was placed at the corner of the court, according to the dictum of the attorney, or at the bottom of the alley, after the opinion of the parson. Of course, if he heeded not these home affairs, he could not be expected to trouble his head about the measures of her Majesty's Government. He was of no party. Whig or Tory, Conservative or Radical, all wanted physic, and that was in his way: he would as soon have dispensed a blue pill to Colonel Sibthorp as a black draught to Lord Brougham. He couldn't make up his mind whether he was blue or yellow. His neighbours told him that he must be blue or yellow, but he had no notion of those colours in connection with anything but different sorts of jaundice; and, as he did not wish to offend either blue or yellow, he compromised the matter by painting his shutters pea-green. Nobody remembered our friend otherwise than the same indolent, amiable individual. As a boy, he went under the familiar soubriquet of 'Easy Sam;' and he was the general friend, butt, drudge, and favourite of the whole school. He was no fool, but one of those fat-faced, sleepy-eyed, sleek-haired varlets that mothers think so much, and other people so little, of Never was a less selfish urchin; if his share of a feast was smaller than his neighbour's, he only said, 'It will do very well!' Never was a less ostentatious individual; and yet, even of his own performances, he would say, 'It will do very well!' As he shot up out of a fat, chubby boy into a tall, lathy lad, his principle of passive content ment grew upon him. Far from deficient in abilities or devoid of intelligence, he did not excel in anything, because he put forth just enough ability to save himself from punishment, and exerted just enough intelligence to secure himself from disgrace. Had he been a jot less indus--something that could be felt, but not told. He did notrious or intelligent, it would have been better for him, because he might then have met with sufficient rebuke, or even castigation, to force him into more strenuous exertion, and to arouse the latent energies that lay dormant within him. But no; he was as great a favourite with the masters as he was with his companions, for he seldom, if ever, needed either censure or punishment: his gentle, docile disposition kept him from offending, while his scholastic duties were always creditably performed. What he had to do he did, and what he did would, generally, do very well. His cousin Ernest was a very different sort of lad; and, though we intend to follow exclusively the fortunes of Easy Sam, we introduce his cousin Ernest for a moment, just to illustrate our meaning by the force of contrast. His cousin Ernest, then, was quite a contrast to him. Hasty, uncertain, irascible, few liked him; few were there that did not infinitely prefer our goodnatured hero. Ernest was often in trouble; Sam, as we have seen, seldom in disgrace. Yet was there an indomitable energy of spirit, a habit of indusfry and perseverance, about the former that, in all their performances, left our easy hero in the Sam was well known and much esteemed, and not a little practice soon gladdened his heart. His kind and amiable manners were quite in his favour. Kind and amiable manners are one of the best ingredients in a doctor's pharmacopoeia. The old ladies-and young ones, too, for that matter-the old ladies, who had nothing the matter but whimsies, and who sent for a doctor for want of something better to do, were delighted with Sam, for he would sit and gossip by the hour, retail all the news of the place with the utmost amenity, and give the nicest medicines that could be imagined; yet was there something wanting in Sam's practice that could hardly be described thing in a first-rate style, had no new-named complaints to satisfy the interrogatories of his patients, but just let them die of old-fashioned diseases. Something slovenly and second-rate there was about his modus operandi; he allowed his patients to suggest, and too often adopted their suggestions-the worst thing in the world for a medical man to do; and when the nurses said they had done so and so, or tried such and such, he was silly enough to say, Just so, Mrs Gruel; it will do very well.' Thus Sam began to find his practice fall off. No one found fault with him-no one could dislike him, but he was sinking gradually into neglect; and, when a new practitioner set up in the same town, matters got much worse. This disciple of Galen was never at a loss for a hard name, and, if he did not know one, he coined one. He was a smarter, if not a cleverer man, and soon took the wind out of Sam's sail. It was with bitter heart sickness that our hero felt the decline of his business, for his poor old mother was dependent on his exertions-she who had impoverished herself to send him to the hospitals; and his kind and generous heart ached as he perceived that disappointment and embarrassment awaited him. He was one of the best of sons, un wearied in his solicitude for his mother's comfort, and his home was rendered happy by domestic love. By degrees, however, narrow means became manifest, and little hardships had to be endured, which he exceedingly regretted on her account-not his own, for, as far as he was concerned, it all did very well. Sam was so great a favourite in his own sphere, that he was always pretty sure of a certain amount of professional employment. Some of the ladies, young and old, above alluded to, liked his easy ways, his nice physic, and his emollient manners, better than the sharp practice of his opponent; and, but for an unlucky incident connected with his besetting foible, he might have lingered on the noiseless tenor of his way until he grew into a seedy old man, with silver hair and gold-headed cane, the gentlest and the poorest of village Esculapians. But Sam, among other indolent habits, had a shambling, shuffling style of penmanship, that had fallen from bad to worse, because he found that his few correspondents understood him well enough, and therefore he considered that his handwriting did very well. A set of as broken-kneed, bandy-legged letters composed Sam's alphabet as ever you saw. Physicians seem to have, indeed, a prescriptive right to write as illegibly as possible; the more difficulty the druggist finds in making out their hieroglyphics, of course the more merit is due to him; and Sam, though he could lay claim to few of the elements of success that dignify the heads of the profession, bad at least this quality in common with them-a cramped and yet slovenly style of penmanship as the best. Sam did not make up his own medicines, but wrote prescriptions, because he had been told that looked respectable. Well, Sam's writing 'materiel,' like that of most easy, indolent men, was a perfect specimen of disorder. You never yet met with a careless, do-well-enough man, but his writing-desk betrayed him-his ink all mud, his pens all rusted and erusted, his paper in scraps-above all, his blotting paper gone. Blotting-paper is a great test of moral character. One day Sam came home in a great hurry to write a prescription; he was forced to go elsewhere, but he must send a prescription to the druggist's shop. One steel pen had its nibs crossed, like the tail of a king-fisher; another had them broken short off; a third would do very well, but the ink-the ink was positively dried up. Sam had long made it do, but the last drop was now gone. He was obliged to write with a pencil; his mother remonstrated, bat in vain, and the precious prescription was sent off to be made up. You anticipate the result, no doubt, for once it did not do very well. A sad mistake was made by the compounder; it did very badly, and so did the poor child to whom it was administered. It chanced that this child was a special favourite of poor Sam's-a meek-eyed, golden-locked little fairy, that had twined herself about his tender heart; and deep and bitter was the anguish of his spirit as he sat all night with the attle attenuated feverish hand in his, or laid his finger on the feeble pulse, and watched the damp and pallid forehead, with its light blue veins, and the long-lashed eyelid quivering in agony, and to think that all this was his fault, and to bear the reproaches of the parents, as well as the Leener reproaches of his own conscience-all this was inexpressibly bitter, and gave poor Sam a deep and lasting lesson, though, alas! it was not sufficiently powerful to overcome the influence of long-rooted and most pernicious babit. The child recovered after a long and dangerous illness: so far Sam's affectionate heart was relieved; but, alas! Othello's occupation was indeed gone. In a small country town such a thing became universally known. The lad who made up the medicine might have shared the blame, ¡bat the damning fact came out that it was written with a pencil. This was so gross an instance of carelessness that it could not be overlooked. The most whimsical of the ladies, whose amateur illness we have noticed, could not put up with it: should he make mistakes in their medicines! ¦ should he write aqua pura for aqua rosea, what might not be the consequence! Bam fell into utter neglect. His prospects were blasted: abject poverty stared him in the face; and, what to him was worse, his poor old mother was left without resource. Fortunately, however, Sam's inoffensive disposition and kindly demeanour had made him friends; and one of them, an old fellow with a warm heart in his bosom, determined to advance sufficient money to set him up in business. There was but one sort of business to which our friend felt himself competent, and, though it seems a singular choice after what had happened, he decided on removing to a distant place (for he feared his misadventure might injure him in his own neighbourhood), and setting up as a druggist. His old friend cautioned him to the utmost carefulness in the preparation of prescriptions, which advice he scrupulously followed, and, in fact, he never made a slip of that sort again, though, we regret to say, he was far from entirely cured of his infirmity. Sam was now not a little successful; his civility and good temper accompanied him, and was as much to the purpose behind the counter as it had been in the sick chamber-more so, indeed, to judge by the results, for he became a prosperous man-a period of his history at which he was first introduced to the reader-a period at which he had painted his shutters pea-green. By the by, the fact of his exhibiting this rather florid and continental colour partook of his characteristic trait. He determined, as we have seen, to give no decided countenance to the blue or the yellow candidate, and therefore resolved on the happy medium of green. The painter would have brought him a specimen of the tint, but, in his usual indolent way, he said green was green, whether pea or sea, and so left it to the varlet, who brought him out in so staring a colour, as to put his modesty sometimes to the blush. As Sam was now doing very well-that is, in the best emphasis of that ambiguous expression-and as Sam's mother was now growing old and feeble, he felt that prudence was veering round, and beginning to look in the same direction that passion had long been gazing. Prudence and passion are too often like the opposite ends of a finger-post-prudence pointing to Cork, while passion would direct us to Fermoy; and such had long been the case with our hero; but now the case was undergoing an alteration: in a word, easy Sam now allowed himself to think of a wife. We speak advisedly in the words allowed himself to think, for he had long thought of a young lady without allowing himself to do so; but he was too good a son to supersede his mother, and too good a man to marry before he could keep a wife in comfort. Now, however, that his money was on the increase, and his mother on the decline, he began to think seriously; and, as there was a young lady in his native town to whom the aforesaid finger-post had long been pointing, his mind was soon made up. The course of his courtship ran smoothly enough, for there was mutual attachment to mollify it; but even in this matter his besetting foible had well-nigh brought him into a dilemma. He had made an arrangement on a certain day to come to an eclaircissement with the friends; and as young ladies are somewhat touchy on this point, any want of punctuality is a dangerous matter. Sam had borrowed a friend's horse to ride over to the town where the young lady resided, and, as he mounted (perhaps a little awkwardly), his mother reminded him of a slight constitutional weakness in a particular part of his wardrobe, which she had previously noticed, but of which his mounting to the saddle mayhap reminded her. The good old lady offered her aid with a needle and thread; but Sam valorously disdained such an indignity, and, with his old satisfactory apophthegm, declaring that it would do very well, he set out on his important mission. The conse quence of this indiscreet piece of intrepidity was, that, after a few hours' hard riding out of the town, he fairly turned tail, and rode as rapidly back again. He returned to his house with a very red face and perturbed brow, and was much more awkward in getting out of the saddle than he had been in getting into it. The end of it was that he was obliged to make a thousand lying apologies, which were received (but not believed) in solemn silence. Whether he ever told his wife the truth is a point on which we never had any means of information. After his marriage, Sam lived for several years a happy and contented man-his characteristic foible producing no more serious results than petty misadventures. Camomile flowers would come falling out of incompetent paper-bags that had been supposed to do very well. Leeches escaped from insecure receptacles, and were found dried to mummies or drowned in honey. Soda-water was found dead as ditch-water, having been most carefully wired over unsound corks. But these things were trifles. Sam managed to maintain his wife and increasing family in comfort, though he could never achieve what may be called a firstrate business, because there was always the same slovenly, make-shift way of doing things that materially injured his success. At length events of more importance transpired. His old mother slept with her ancestors, and his old friend soon followed the way of all the earth. This latter point was one of great importance to Sam, for the old man's heir determined to call in his father's money; and among this same was the loan advanced to Sam to set him up in business, and upon which little more than the interest had been paid. Our friend's prudence had not, indeed, been very conspicuous in this matter, for he ought, gradually at least, to have liquidated the debt before he incurred other liabilities; but, like many men, Sam thought if he punctually paid the interest he did very well. He had now an inexorable churl to deal with, instead of his kind old patron, who, by the by, had fostered Sam's indolent security by declining some instalments of the principal-a heartless and inexorable churl, who pressed for immediate payment; and, in a word, Sam was a ruined man. Ilis stock-in-trade, his furniture-all was swept away; and he had the heart-rending sight to see his wife and children without a home to shelter them or a bed to lie on. Bankrupt and beggared, poor Easy Sam was for some time consigned to a debtor's prison. Nor was this all. When he came up to pass the court, his books were found in a state of sublime confusion. He had kept his accounts upon his old principle of their doing very well:' he could understand them himself, and he thought that was enough. Thus he had no little difficulty in obtaining his certificate. He was subjected to the misery of delay, reprimand, suspicion, and disgrace; and came out of prison a heartsick, spirit-broken man, with nothing before him but a hopeless struggle against want and misery. satisfaction of returning the amount to the unwilling donor. The reason for this was, that, in the course of the remarkable vicissitudes of human life, a flood of extraordinary prosperity poured in upon Easy Sam. It happened just at this time-and strange casualties, most opportune coincidences do happen, you know, in the world, as well as on paper-it happened that a rich relation died in the West Indies; and really, my half incredulous reader, rich relations do die for the benefit of poor relations, as well as the convenience of unhappy authors. Indeed, there are few better places for rich relations to die in than the West Indies. Well, sir, a rich relation died in that healthy part of the globe, and left the great bulk of his property to Easy Sam. Joy and gladness now broke into the dark dwelling of our friend, whose first care was to return the money, as above hinted, to his cousin. He was now in a state, not only of independence, but of comparative affluence. He could afford to give up business, particularly as business had so ungraciously given up him; he honourably paid his debts; and he thought (foolish fellow) that he might take it very easy. He was not-so he thought-obliged now to be so particular-he had nobody now to please but himself; in short, he had the idea, though it was not definitely admitted by his mind or consciously recognised by his understanding, that a man who had not his bread to get might fairly act out the principle, 'It will do very well.' One of Sam's first acts was to set out for his native town, and procure a habitation fitted for his altered fortunes. He left his family behind for a time, until he could introduce them to his newly-furnished abode; and, having met with a house to his mind, he entered with great glee upon that pleasant employment-pleasant enough when you have got plenty of money-of furnishing. He had left his wife behind to take care of the children. Perhaps, had she been present, her woman's eye might have detected some defects in articles of furniture that Sam considered as doing very well. Howbeit, all was ready-all, to his eye, at least, was perfect. He had made a point of giving his family an agreeable surprise, and, having purchased a horse and gig, drove over to fetch them. ought to have bought a set of new harness with his new set-out; but he had got this a bargain from old Wilson, and really it did very well. The day was bright and cheerful, but not more so than the party. The bright blue sky was beaming overhead, but the delicious sunshine of domestic love was shining still more brightly in their hearts. They had proceeded halfway on their journey, when the breaking of a trace obliged them to stop. Impatient to introduce them to the Sam could have borne this tolerably well had he alone new house, Sam fretted and vexed himself at the hindrance. been concerned, but, when he thought of the dear ones de- The ostler of the Black Bull would have fetched a saddler; pending on him for support, that thought well-nigh mad- but this would involve additional delay. They might not dened him. On their account, he could stoop to do what even reach home before nightfill, and a pretty disappointfor himself he never would have done, that is, to apply to ment it would be to poor Sam to drive up to his new door his cousin Ernest for a little temporary relief. That per- in the dark; so he got the man to patch up the harness sonage, acting on his old principle of doing everything as with some spring cord, declaring to the rustic master-ofwell as possible, had cultivated his boyish taste for draw-the-horse that it would do very well. The fact is, Sam ing into an excellent talent. Hence he had become a firstrate artist. He was, indeed, at the head of his profession, and in receipt of a princely income; but he was churlish and uncertain as ever, and sent his poor cousin a paltry sum, with a cruel letter, containing a hint that it was all he must ever expect from him. Perhaps the amiable reader may prefer the character of Easy Sam, with all his foibles and in all his distress, to that of Ernest, in the success of his energies and the height of his prosperity, and perhaps the writer may agree with such a sentiment; but it must be remembered that amiability and energy are by no means necessarily disunited. Many a man of merit displays both excellences; and it may be remarked, that if such a man as Ernest is eminently successful, in spite of his unamiable disposition, much more likely is a man of benevolent heart and kindly demeanour to be so-a man who joins the 'suaviter in modo' to the 'fortiter in re.' Sam's bosom burned with indignation. He longed to send the paltry donation back again, but his wife and children were around him, and he was obliged to retain it for a few weeks-only for a few weeks, my worthy friend. He longed to send it back, and in a few weeks he had the great How often in after years did those words haunt his night dreams and his waking meditations! Our party had reached the summit of the steep hill that overlooks that quiet country town, and Sam was pointing out with his whip the still distant scene of their future home, when the horse, making a trip, suddenly tightened the trace: the make-shift repair broke again, and the trace fell dangling to the ground. You anticipate the disaster. The horse was startled; the carriage swerved; the animal got vexed; the hill was steep; the pace became fast. Urged by the impetus of the descent, it was accelerated every step; faster and faster still; the females screamed; the horse became unmanageable; the pace grew faster-headlong -furious. The vehicle ran up a bank, turned over with a ponderous crash, and all were precipitated to the ground. Sam and his children were most extraordinarily unhurt, but his wife lay insensible on the road. She had been thrown upon her head with great violence: concussion of the brain was the consequence, and she never spoke again! |