rank; some of the latter, I hear, are organising an establishment of Sisters of Charity, and intend going round among the poor of the mews, to minister to the sick and the afflicted equestrians. The mansion where the Duke of Bordeaux received his expatriated subjects, and struck terror into impenitent France, has been generously given by its owner for the purposes of the Society; she herself having retired to a suburban villa, where she sacrifices her energies to doing good to the lame, the halt, and the blind among that abandoned class composed of foreign actors, and musicians. Another order of Sisters of Charity (emancipated from papistical thraldom) consists of ladies who go from house to house among those of a higher sphere than the poor and ignorant. To maintain the affectionate confidence of the district, they encourage watchfulness, and discriminate truth by anecdotes. Lady A- S right hand knows what ring is that on the finger of Lady Bleft. Messages of love are by their agency rapidly diffused, timid minds strengthened-enervated faculties sharpened by the exercise of the ingenuity. I will exemplify to you some day the manner in which this admirable system of Christian emulation and rivalry works (how different from the gossip of a certain parish not a hundred miles from Tinglebury, which will not subside into peace till the Rev. Mr. Podd is gathered!)—by instances. The members of

-'s

this order have no separate or settled habitation, nor uniform costume. Some penetrate the mazes of the Opera, there to cull warning truths;a few have dared to lift up the voice of counsel in the presence of our Sovereign-who sends for them secretly, whenever some new beneficence or amelioration of the public good is to be accomplished. N.B. You will find these and other establishments very incorrectly adverted to in Lady Morgan's work on Pimlicowho embraces but does not exhaust this district.

These facts, wherewith indeed we had partly furnished ourselves ere reaching the metropolis, quickened our impatience to kindle our minor lamps, too, among such sympathetic circles. P's "Card-book," as we already call it, proved a valuable auxiliary: the name of Lady having been mentioned to us by our hostess, as foremost among these eminent persons. Her address affording itself-we resolved to lose no time in making her acquainted with us; and have just returned from our first visit. But for the romantic and curious incidents which characterised this you must wait. My sheet is already crammed,—and the annihilation

of franks, Mr. Pecker says-a cunningly devised measure for the subversion of the Houses of Parliament,-has put an end to extensive correspondence. Meanwhile, hoping against hope, let me sign myself, Deeply yours,

DIANA RILL.

Mrs. Pecker's love. True to her conjugal virtues, she remains principally at home: for what indeed, says she, can make up for her own tulip-beds at Tinglebury? Mr. Pecker has gone to Tattersall's, where, he is told, the Protectionist members hold their meetings (by way of a protest against the criminal flexibility of the Duke of Wellington, who lives in the neighbourhood,) in hopes of finding some one who will take up the matter which interests us all so deeply.

TIME VERSUS MALTHUS.

THE LAST VERDICT.

"STOP! and the cad of the omnibus, looking to his left, beheld a very solemn gentleman-for he was a moral philosopher -and a very sharp little lady-for she was learned, waiting on the pavement. In and off, the moralist, before he retied the broken thread of his logical synthesis, looked round upon his neighbours. He sighed when he had done so, as well he might; for here at least was evidence of Nature's philosophy, instead of his own learned theory, which was to fill nations with gladness, by making mouths few and bread much:-two babies, four children, a matron, and a young lady with a very bright weddingring seen through her transparent glove, which very wickedly and designedly she made the most of. But doom! doom! woe! woe! babies' smiles, children's laughter, a young heart's joy, God's sunshine bright on Holborn pavement! sorrow! sorrow! mere wiles towards the great pitfall of Pauperism and Despair. The philosopher could have put ashes on his head: he taught, and where were his disciples? Was there one? Yes, do not despair, teaching moralist of a gloomy creed, for your platonic friend, the sharp little lady, has just taken her glance off the bride's orange flowers, and now, as you look, is abstracted in the sentimental woes of the Lady Belindas of her new novel. Do not fear! the

very adjuration of cheerfulness has made you friends. You put your icy hand upon the very human heart of Pauperism, and ery your curse upon its poor narrow tenure of enjoyment, whilst she tickles the feeble appetite of all enjoying convention, by mawkish episodes regarding cold and hunger; very pleasant to read over a glowing fire; very digestive, possibly, after a luxurious meal. "Yet, my moralities teach not, thinks the moralist: "it must be owing to the spirit of the time;" "and my novels come forth today, and die to-morrow in a fashionable gazette," meditates the little lady. Yes, moralist; yes, novelist; it is "the spirit of the time," which, disregarding the false, is teaching the universal and the true; which, disregarding the moralities of man, is teaching the moralities of nature, benignant now as from the beginning; which is looking onward, not retrospectively; which sees visions nearer to God, than dull dreams of Time's senility; which is teaching its generation not to be lookers-on, but actors; and which is teaching it the wisdom of faith in goodness, cheerfulness, hope. Till your moralities teach with this progressive sign, fruitless and barren will they be; till in your novels you put the common human heart, they will not sell. Moralist and novelist, I tell you so! But my verdict waits!

Set down at the Bank, the philosophic friends walk onward side by side, through narrow streets, dull courts, reeking alleys, till they stand within an ancient city grave-yard, where the dust of countless generations makes the earth-covering for the festering pauperism of yesterday. Yet even here the cheerful principle of life stands out as God's best angel, triumphant above the fearinvested change which Priestcraft calls Death, which Nature teaches is but a new step onward in the great spiritual march of Time. A daisy here, a tuft of sod there; broad pathways of sunlight above the workhouse grave, as above the costly marble of the plethora-killed alderman; kneeling angels in the sun-gloried windows, typifying faith on earth and glory in heaven, still kneeling at their inaudible centuries of prayer; a caged yet joyous lark beside the cobbler's window across the churchyard wall, are visible not, for the moralist has already commenced his calculations, and so makes his way towards the sexton, who is shovelling the earth just beside the church porch.

Now it happens that Tapps, the above-mentioned lark-possessing cobbler, has been lured by the bright sun from awl and lapstone, and is standing there too, just as the moralist inquires of Mope the

sexton the number and amount of burials made yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily. When this information is noted down, there is a fresh question as to age, sex, diseases.

Tapps,

t'other."

"Why," replies Mope, after a moment's consideration, "they go off for want o' wittles, and I take it that thousands lie here, as wouldn't a bin coffined, if there'd bin an easy way to the baker's shop. For when the quartern loaf gits up a farthing, says I there 'll be work in 't this week; so it's true, 'specially in babies." "And what makes the loaf dear, and the way to the baker's shop difficult?" asks the moralist, certain of a prime shot presently both into the ears of the twinkle-eyed cobbler, and the dull sexton. Why, why," considers the sexton, and appealing by look to why a very little corn the one, and a very little money "No! my man," replies the wise moralist, "knowledge hasn't reached you, I see. It's a want of moral restraint that fills churchyards, and erams workhouses, makes bread dear, and brings a curse upon the world. A man that has less than a hundred a year shouldn't marry; if he does, he acts against the laws of God and man. Too many creatures are born to starve, and rot, and die; and it isn't till nations pass laws against marriage, excepting only the case of the rich, that bread will be plentiful, and the coming ruin of the world prevented. You see I do not preach without being a sort of moral precept in my own person. I am not married.

"So far you beat Malthus, sir, I think," says Tapps, "for he first put sich a thing a-going, though he knew very well he was plucking a feather out of a Scotchman's cap. But now, sir, jist allow me to ask you one natural question :-Are you, with that clever-looking little lady by your side are you the happier for not being married to her?"

The little lady blushes, her heart beats, she turns away: the cobbler has propounded the first and foremost secret of her soul. But the moralist looks grave.

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The law of moral duty and that of nature are two different things; knowing this, am I to add another fraction to the predoomed woe of human misery?"

Begging your pardon," says the casuist cobbler, "the laws of duty and nature are one; and I take it, that there's a deal of wise heads now, as look upon Parson Malthus's population affair as a great bubble, that wasted a deal o' ink and paper, and that is

not all the pain besides; for ye see, sir, it ain't every parson's crotchets as are quite so harmless as was that dear old Parson Adams's about his bits o' sermons. And now, sir, if there is sumfen o' the truth in this here early marriage matter, what's the cause on't?"

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Man's natural bad passions, or perhaps, rather some inherent principle of nature to over-populate beyond its means of subsistence; that thus only within a mark and bound, civilization shall make progress; that men shall dream futilely of a perpetual summer-time, forgetting the swarm of locusts that hover over to destroy.'

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Well, sir, I differ," goes on the cobbler, digging his right hand stoutly into his left. "It's ignorance. Make a poor man less a brute; teach him, and there 'll be the salve, I take it. Now, if Parson Malthus had written a good spelling-book, or a good storybook for instance, or a sumfen that would a really taught what a beautiful place this earth is, how full of blessings for every human. creature as has breath, he'd a done more to cure wickedness o' the flesh, than he did with that sharp book o' his, which the bishops thumbed and thought sich a might about. Now, give a man sumfen to think about beside the public-house and the skittleground; give him cheap meat and bread, so as he may fill his belly, and then I take it ye'll find him a being as can reason, as won't slip into poverty on purpose, but keep single till there's a sumfen for a wife and bits o' children; and then if he doesn't have 'em, the Lord bless his heart, it ain't in the right place, and I wouldn't give tuppence for 't. For, what's made my life a bit of a sunny thing, so that I've often had a heart as light as that lark as is a singing there? why, my missis; for if I have a trouble she helps to take it; and as for children, taking the good and evil together, they're the flowers which God has himself set in the path of a poor man's life; it's only want o' bread as makes children a sort o' thorns in the way o' poor struggling human creeturs."

"All very well, Mr. Tapps,' says the moralist, somewhat pettishly; "human happiness, and more mouths than bread, are arguments that destroy one another. If you over-populate the

earth

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If," interrupts Tapps, "the doubt 's very strong here. Why, in this here nation, what makes bread dear, and fills up with parish coffins sich a place as this as Mope rigilates? Why, bad laws. Now put these down, instead o' bilding workhouses, and separating a man from his better self, and there 'll come corn