had left were dead; and new tenants, other wretches, fighting against want, and gin, and typhus, were preparing new loam for the church-yard. No: he would not seek now. He would come in the eveningit would be the best time, the very best.

With this feeling, St. Giles turned away, and was proceeding slowly onward, when he paused at a shop-window. In a moment, he felt a twitch at his pocket, and turning, he saw a child of some eight or ten years old, carrying away a silk handkerchief that Becky, in exchange for the huswife, had forced upon him. How sudden, and how great was St. Giles's indignation at the villain thief! Never had St. Giles felt so strongly virtuous! The pigmy felon flew towards Hog Lane; and in a moment, St. Giles followed him and stood at the threshold of the house wherein the thief had taken shelter. St. Giles was about to enter, when he was suddenly stopt by a man-that man was Tom Blast.

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Well, if this isn't luck!" said Blast spreading himself in the door-way, to secure the retreat of the thief. "Who'd ha' thought we should ha' met so soon?"

"All's one for that," said St. Giles. "I've been robbed, and the young thief's here, and you know it."

"A thief here! Mind what you're about, young man: do mind what you say, afore you take away the character of a honest house. We've nothin' here but our good name to live upon, and so do mind what you're about." And Blast uttered this with such mock earnestness, looked so knowingly in the face of St. Giles, that, unconsciously, he shrank from the speaker; who continued : “ Is it likely now, that you could think anybody in this Lane would pick a gentleman's pocket? Bless your heart! we're all so honest here, we are, and Blast laughed.

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I thought you told me," said St. Giles, confused, "that you lived somewhere away at Horsleydown."

"Lor love you! folks as are poor like us have, you know, a dozen town-houses; besides country ones under hedges and haystacks. We can easily move about : we haven't much to stop us. And now, to business. You've really lost your handkercher?"

"Tisn't that I care about it," said Giles, "only you see 'twas given me by somebody."

"Given! To be sure. Folks do give away things, don't they? All the world's gone mad, I think; people do so give away.' St. Giles's heart fell at the laughing, malignant look with which Blast gazed upon him. It was plain that he was once again in

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the hands of his master; again in the power of the devil that had first sold him. Howsomever,' continued Blast, "if you've really been robbed, and the thief's in this house, shall I go and fetch a officer? You don't think, sir, do you "and Blast grinned and bowed his head-" you don't think, sir, as how I'd pertect anybody as had broke the laws of my native land? Is it likely? Only say the word. Shall I go for a officer?"

"No; never mind-it doesn't matter. Still, I've a fancy for that handkercher, and will give more than its worth for it."

"Well, that's like a nobleman, that is. Here, Jingo! cried Blast, stepping a pace or two into the passage, and bawling his lustiest" Jingo, here's the gen'lman as has lost the handkercher you found; bring it down, my beauty.' Obedient to the command, a half-naked child-with the very look and manner of St. Giles's former self-instantly appeared, with the stolen goods in his hand. "He's sich a lucky little chap, this is," said Blast -" nothin's lost hereabout, that he doesn't find it. Give the fogle to the gen'lman; and who knows? perhaps, he'll give you a guinea for it." The boy obeyed the order, and stood with open hand for the reward. St. Giles was about to bestow a shilling, when Tom Blast sidled towards him, and in an affected tone of confidence, said "Couldn't think o' letting you do sich a thing." "And why not?" asked St. Giles, becoming more and more terrified at the bold familiarity of the ruffian. Why not?"

"Tisn't right; not at all proper; not at all what I call natral" -and here Blast whispered in St. Giles's ear-" that money should pass atween brothers."

"Ha, sir!" said Blast, taking his former manner,—" you don't know what a woman that Mrs. St. Giles was! She was a good soul, wasn't she? You must know that her little boy fell in trouble about a pony; and then he was in Newgate, being made all right for Tyburn, jist as this little feller was born. And then they took and transported young St. Giles; and he never seed his mother-never know'd nothin' that she'd got a little baby."

And she's dead!" cried St. Giles.

You didn't

"And, this I will say," answered Blast, "comfortably buried. She was a good soul-too good for this world. know St. Giles, did you?" said Blast with a laugh.

"Why do you ask?" replied the trembling transport.

Because if you did, you must see the likeness. Come here,

Jingo," and Blast laid one hand upon the urchin's head, and with the other pointed out his many traits of resemblance. "There's the same eye for a fogle-the same nose-the same everything. And oh, isn't he fond o' ponies, neither! just like his poor dear brother as is far away in Botany Bay. Don't you see that he's the very spit on him?" cried Blast.

"I can't say-how should I know?" answered St. Giles, about to hurry off; and then he felt a strange interest in the victim, and paused and asked- "Who takes care of him, now his mother's gone?"

"He hasn't a friend in the world but me,' said Blast. "God help him!" thought St. Giles.

"And I though you'd never think it "-continued Blast," I love the little varmint, jist as much as if I was his own father.'

A FEW WORDS CONNECTED WITH OPTIMISM.

THE other day we lit upon a passage in Hegel's Encyclopædia,* so admirably fitted to prevent all misunderstanding in the subject of optimism, so clear, and at the same time so concise, that we resolved to extract and translate it. Here it is:

"Discontented striving vanishes, when we acknowledge that the final purpose of the world is just as much fulfilled, as it is perpetually fulfilling itself. This is, in general, the position of the man, while youth thinks that the world consists of the bad only, and that something totally different must be made out of it. Religious consciousness on the other hand, considers the world as governed by a Divine Providence, and therefore as answering to that, which should be. However, this concord between the 'is' and the should be' is not a stiff, processless concord; for the good, the final purpose of the world is only, while it perpetually produces, and indeed the difference between the spiritual and natural world consists in this, that while the latter only constantly returns back upon itself, in the former there is certainly-a progress." Part 1. s. 234.

* A work so called, because it contains a system for arranging the whole sphere of science, and not to be mistaken for an "Encyclopedia" in the ordinary sense of the word.