undoubtedly, a certain veneration for money which is grovelling and base in the extreme-a horrible idolatry. Granted. Let it be anathema. At the same time, we do contend that there is an amount of proper respect to be entertained for it by every reasonable person; and with this we must insist that the designation of it by such mean and unceremonious terms as "tin," and dust," or even "cash," is incompatible. Phraseology of this kind, like nicknames applied to individuals, betokens a familiarity which doth breed, if not express, contempt. But wealth, although a bad master, is an excellent servant, and therefore not to be despised by anybody. And he who disesteems money, contemns all that money will procure; that is to say, nearly everything in the world but health and peace of mind; though even these advantages are not to be had without some of it.

One would think, from the various synonyms used to signify money, whereby the direct mention of it is in a manner shirked, that it was something of which people are ashamed. Men shrink in conversation from naming it outright, and hint at it, covertly, as the " needful," the "stumpy," the "ready; as if the thing alluded to were of an indelicate nature. They describe it by initials, as £ s. d.; and perhaps, in time, they will come to express it by asterisks. Nay, they defame it by vile and disparaging phrases, such as dross" and "filthy lucre." Poets and novelists, in particular, are always aspersing and decrying it, in a manner which is at least unfair; for they speak ill of it, mostly, on very slight acquaintance. They call it "sordid pelf," and say that "riches, the incentives to evil, are dug out of the earth." Well; so are potatoes dug out of the earth, and they are just as much, and no more, the incentives to gluttony, as riches are to evil, to those who are over-fond of them; and the only sordidness of pelf is derived from the hand that clutches it. Far be it from us to defend the love of money, considered as a blind passion, which we frankly admit to be the root of all evil, but we must put in a gentle plea for a sensible, well-regu lated regard for it. "Wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used;" an equal claim on our affection have the means by which wine is procured.

We shall not dilate on the inconsistency of those authors who write for money whilst they write against it. We will only recommend them to write more justly and sensibly; and wish

them the better pay for so doing. Let them pocket it, and be thankful. The labourer's hire is not to be grumbled at unless it is inadequate. As to the man who would abuse his salary, he would also quarrel with his bread-and-butter. If, making allowance for high animal spirits, we can excuse a little jocularity in speaking of money, we cannot put up with its deliberate slander. This is an injustice too gross for our sensibilities. But we are dogmatising whilst we should reason; let us then argue,-though not exactly as barristers-for money.

Be it, then, considered, that money represents what it can purchase. A penny is equivalent to a penny's worth. Thus we say that a roll is a penny, or a ham-sandwich fourpence. So much money, therefore, is tantamount to so much bread, beef, and beer; nay, to so much water, wherever there exists a water-rate. Accordingly, he who despises money, despises the necessaries of life. A given, or gotten, sum is requisite to the acquisition even of a smock frock and a pair of ankle-jacks; therefore, even they whose wants are limited to the commonest fare, and to the meanest clothing, must admit a certain care for money. But most people's souls are superior to beef, and ascend, when they can, from plain butcher's meat to made dishes; or to Welsh mutton, partridge, woodcock, and venison. They soar above pump-water to the treble X and the entire, and thence, through port and sherry, to the pinnacles of claret and champagne. Equally do they mount from the smock frock and the highlow to the suit of Moses or of Stultz. In proportion to the rising scale of desire and appetite must be the increasing estimation of money.

None, then, but those saints who repudiate the good things of this life have any business to disparage coin. And we must deny this right to such even of them whose self-denial admits of any gratification whatever, and who draw the line of abstinence anywhere above berries and sackcloth. But your anchorite and your hermit are out of the question in this country. Their existence here would be impossible, morally and physically. A saint of this class could literally find no hole to put his head in. If he established his cave on waste land, he would infringe the right of common; if elsewhere, he would be liable to an action for trespass; and in either case, probably, would be apprehended as a rogue and vagabond, and sent to gaol like a tramper or a gipsy. Besides, he would be starved. Crab-apples are the only hedgefruits that will keep all the year round; and he would have no

right to gather walnuts. Moreover, society would not tolerate, anybody who should wear hair-shirts and never change them; the odour of this species of sanctity would be too much for it; and recourse to baths and washhouses for the ascetic classes would be compelled by Act of Parliament. And then a ragged and uncleanly saint would not now be listened to; he would be forced to preach in a decent surplice, or at all events in a respectable suit of black; the which canonicals cannot be had for nothing. No; we address not saints, but ordinary honest men, who own to a certain liking for creature comforts, and are also desirous to pay for them. Because it is certainly possible to eat and drink of the best, and to be clad with the finest, at the expense of tradesmen. But to indulge in a fondness for good living, and a taste for dress, and at the same time not to have, and to profess not to want, money, is virtually to proclaim one's self a rogue. It is to acknowledge an unconcern about paying one's household-bills, and an unscrupulousness as to doing one's tailor.

Does any gentleman think a carriage worth possessing? Nay, is it an occasional convenience to him to take a cab, or an omnibus ? Does he wish for a good horse; is he fond of hunting and field-sports? Would he be content to live in a tub, like Diogenes; or would he prefer a snug cottage, not to say a mansion? Requires he servants to wait upon him, or would he really not object to clean his own boots ? Unless he can dispense with these superfluities, let him not pretend to decry money.. If he does, he is a humbug, to say the very least. Money, he must spend, either his own or other people's, and such a gentleman, we observe, generally chooses the latter alternative.

Is anybody of opinion that it is a fine thing to travel, to enrich his mind by the knowledge of men, to elevate it by intercourse with Nature? Then must he think the means of locomotion, to say nothing of defraying the charges of mine host, a somewhat fine thing too. Does he delight in study? Will borrowed books suffice him-or will he confess that he is capable of stealing them?else must he place a value on wealth as a help to literary treasure. Has he pleasure in the prosecution of science or the fine arts, and sets he no store by the instruments to these ends?

Would any man fain gratify his social affections? or would he rather live as a monk? Say that he wishes for a wife and family: -would enjoy his home and domestic hearth. Surely he cannot scorn that which affords a maintenance to his helpmate and

offspring. Nay, further; suppose him to be a general philanthropist, with a thirst for the promotion of universal happiness. Unless his kindnesses to his fellow-creatures are limited (as in the instance imagined is not uncommonly the case) to good advice and wishes, that thirst will most certainly be unslaked without some draught of Pactolus; or, at least, a cheque on its bank.

Filthy meat, then; filthy clothes, filthy fire! Filthy beef, filthy venison, filthy wine! Dirty carriages, dirty horses, dirty mansion, dirty menials! Sordid travel, sordid study, sordid science, sordid fine arts, sordid wife and children; sordid love and domestic bliss; sordid benevolence and universal philanthropy! Such must be the language of all those who, as "filthy lucre, "dirty dross," and sordid pelf," are accustomed to stigmatise money.

The miser, doubtless, is an odious and contemptible wretch odious because selfish, and contemptible because foolish. Let him be dealt with according to poetry. At the same time let poetical justice be done impartially. Let not those offenders. escape censure who regard not money, since they can live without it,-on their neighbours. The fashionable spendthrift is just as sordid as the usurer. The stage Irishman is as despicable as the stage Scotch-' man; and the latter, intellectually considered, has, as the more prudent, rather the advantage of the two. Base as it may be to gloat over hoarded gold, there is something in the contemplation of the power which gold expresses that is even grand. There lie, in posse, the mighty armaments, the countless hosts, the vast resources of an empire; there all the comforts and luxuries of life ; there the happiness of millions. Thus may an emotion approaching the sublime be excited even in the soul of a miser; and many of the tribes of Lazarus and Levi may have had loftier thoughts than we imagine. It is the bad use, or the disuse, of possessions that is ignoble. No disparagement to the coin. No dishonour to the pounds, shillings, and pence. They are types and symbols. of things useful and beautiful. To spurn the representatives of so much excellence is a downright outrage upon sentiment. It is as bad as insulting a hero in his statue, or trampling on the portrait of one's lady-love. PERCIVAL LEIGH.

MAN WAS NOT MADE TO MOURN.

Edinburgh.

THERE is a voice which haunts me still,

Where'er on earth I be;

In lonely vale, on lofty hill,

And on the distant sea-
I hear it in the silent night,
And at the break of morn:
And aye it crieth-dark or light-
Man was not made to mourn!

In ev'ry stream that seaward flows,
That voice salutes mine ear;
In every wind that round me blows,
Its thrilling notes I hear;

In ev'ry sound of Nature's heart,
The cheerful or forlorn,

This ever bears the better part-
Man was not made to mourn!

The sun that glads the summer noon,
The light that blesseth all,

The myriad stars, the quiet moon,
The showers from heaven that fall,
The flowers which in our meadows grow,
Our mountain paths adorn-
All, all, in their own fashion show
Man was not made to mourn!

All Nature cries aloud-but man
Regards not Nature's voice;
Perverteth her benignant plan,
Her workmanship destroys-
From her fair book the brightest page
With impious hand has torn,
Yet still she cries, from age to age,
Man was not made to mourn!

O, gentlest mother! may thy child
Ere long thy lesson read;
Embrace thy precepts, loving, mild,
Thy fraternizing creed :-

Then shall the blessed end be known
For which he has been born;

And all shall feel, from zone to zone,
Man was not made to mourn !

WM. FERGUSSON.