of the pity almost bordering on contempt, with which one regards one's self as he is, shrivelled up into a sort of shrimp of a man-or blown out into a flounder!

The snow-bicker owns an armistice-and Kit Norththat is, we of the olden and the golden time-advance into the debateable ground between the two armies with a frozen branch in our hand as a flag of truce. The Mad Dominie loved us, because then-a-days-bating and barring the cock and the squint of his eye--we were like himself a poet, and while a goose continued standing on one leg, could have composed one jolly act of a tragedy, or book of an epic, while Bob, God bless him, to guard us from scathe, would have risked his life against a whole craal of tinkers. With open arms they come forward to receive us -but our blood is up-and we are jealous of the honour of the school which has received a stain which must be wiped out in blood. Oh! from what mixed motives act boys and men in the deeds deemed most heroic, and worthy of the meed of everlasting fame! Even so is it now with us-when sternly looking at the other six, and then respectfully eyeing the Mad Dominie, to speak of ourselves almost in the language of Shakspeare

"The Prince of Wales stepp'd out before the king,
And challenged either of them to single fight;"

not at long bowls-but toe to toe at the scratch on the snow, with the naked mawlies-especially

"Yon trembling coward who forsook his master,"

the brawny boy with the red shock-head, the craven with the carrots, who, by moonlight nights,

"Round the stacks with the lasses at bogles to play,"

had dared to stand between us and the ladye of our love. Off fly our jackets and stocks--it is not a day for buffand at it like bull-dogs. Twice before had we fought him -at our own option-over the bonnet--for 'twas a sturdy villain, and famous for the cross-buttock. But now, after the first close, in which we lose the fall-with straight

right-handers, we keep him at off-fighting-and lo! a gush of blood from his smeller. "How do you like that, Ben?" Giving his head, with a mad rush, he makes a plunge with his heavy left-for he was kerr-handed--at our stomach. But a dip of our right elbow caught the blow, to the loud admiration of Bob Howie-and even the Mad Dominie-the umpire-could not choose but smile. Like lightning, our left returns between the ogles-and Ben bites the snow. Three cheers from the school—and, lifted on the knee of his second, Jamie Wallace, since signalized at Waterloo, and now a colonel of horse

"He grins horribly a ghastly smile,"

We know

"what he

and is brought up staggering to the scratch.
that we have him-and ask considerately,
means by winking?" And now we play around him,

"Just like unto a trundling mop,
Or a wild goose at play.'

He is brought down now to our own weight-then ten stone jimp-his eyes are momently getting more and more piglike-water-logged, like those of Queen Bleary, whose stone-image lies in the echoing aisle of the old abbey-church of Paisley-and, bat-blind, he hits past our head and body -like an awkward hand at the flail, when drunk, thrashing corn. Another hit on the smeller-and a stinger on the throat-apple-and down he sinks like a poppydeaf to the call of time-and victory smiles upon us from the bright blue skies. "Hurra-hurra-hurra!-Christopher for ever!" and perched aloft, astride on the shoulders of Bob Howie-he, the invincible, gallops with us all over the field, followed by the shouting school, exulting that Ben the Bully has at last met with an overthrow. We exact an oath that he will never again meddle with Meg Whitelaw-shake hands cordially-and

"Off to some other game we all together flew !"

And so ended the famous Snow-Bicker of Pedmount, now immortalized in our Prose-Poem.

Some men, it is sarcastically said, are boys all life-long, and carry with them their puerility to the grave. Twould be well for the world were there in it more of those

"Sound, healthy children of the God of heaven!"

By way of proving their manhood, we have heard grown-up people abuse their own boyhood-forgetting what our great philosophical poet has told them, that

"The boy is father of the man,"

and thus libelling the author of their existence. A poor boy indeed must he have been, who submitted to misery when the sun was new in heaven. Did he hate or despise the flowers around his feet, congratulating him on being young like themselves? The stars, young always, though Heaven only knows how many million years old, every night sparkling in happiness which they manifestly wished him to share? Did he indeed in his heart believe that the moon, in spite of her shining midnight face, was made of green cheese? Or as Bloomfield said of Suffolk - kibbock,

"Of three-times skimm'd sky-blue?"

Not only are the foundations dug and laid in boyhood, of all the knowledge and the feelings of our prime, but the ground-flat too built, and often the second story of the entire superstructure, from the windows of which, the soul looking out, beholds nature in her state, and leaps down, unafraid of a fall on the green or white bosom of earth, to join with hymns the front of the procession. The soul afterwards perfects her palace-building up tier after tier of all imaginable orders of architecture-till the shadowy roof, gleaming with golden cupolas, like the cloud-region of the setting sun, set the heavens a-blaze.

Gaze up on the most glorious idea-gaze down on the most profound emotion-and you will know and feel in a moment that it is not a new birth. You become a devout believer in the Pythagorean and Platonic, and Wordsworthian doctrine of metempsychosis and reminiscence,

and are awed by the mysterious consciousness of the thought "BEFORE!" Try then to fix the date of any high feeling, and back travels your soul, now groping its way in utter darkness, and now in darkness visible—now launching along long lines of steady lustre, such as the moon throws on the broad bosoms of starry lakes-now arrayed in sudden contrast, and

"Blind with excess of light!"

But back let it travel as best or worst it may, through and amidst eras after eras of the wan or radiant past, yet never, never, except for some sweet instant of delusion breaking dewdrop-like at a touch, a breath-never, never during all that perilous pilgrimage—and perilous must it be, haunted by so many ghosts-may the soul reach or rest at the shrine it seeks-at the fountain from which first flowed that feeling whose origin seems to have been out of the world of time-dare we say-in eternity!

Read now Wordsworth's sublime ode, “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," and acknowledge-thou who hast so foolishly scorned that season so near the sources-that there are "more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Study but this one stanza-and ever after let thy cradle-creaking and uncomfortable though it may have been to thy peevish self and all the household-ideally rock in the light of consecration.

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life's star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:
And not in utter nakedness,
Not in entire forgetfulness,

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come
From God, who is our home:

Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Before the growing boy,

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows

He sees it in his joy;

The youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is nature's priest,

And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

But let us make our escape from the Eleusinian Mysteries of this esoteric creed-and present a plain practical exposition of exoteric doctrine to our pupils, the peoplethe great run of the race. "Be ye educated all," we cry,

but that cry being interpreted, means, "Educate yourselves;" and that again signifies, "In whatever school you study, let the head master-we beg her pardon-the head mistress-be Nature! A man or woman may be taught many things out of primers when well-stricken in years. But there are far more things needful for them to know, beyond the communicating power of Brougham or Birkbeck. Oh! that life were so constituted in our land, that every human soul might have fair play in this world of trial! But alas! how many millions of them we call free are born-and bred-live and die-slaves! Here in this island,

"Set like an emerald in the silver sea,"

hath slavery, and the slave-trade, established their strongholds. No day-denied diggers,

"Plunged deep down beneath the swarthy mine,"

are more hopelessly shut out from the "sun's glad beams," than are the melancholy millions whom we insult, by telling them that they are free, because, forsooth, Briton-born! Plutus is our god-and all his idolaters are at once tyrants and slaves. True-and thank God for it-the lash falls not here, on the bare back of the pauper-if he withhold his horny hands from crime. If he do not-then away with him to the Hulks-the Bermudas, or the gallows. But a lash of scorpions is inflicted on his heart. The scourge of the mid-day sun smites him-the moon sees his wan face at work-and yet, the wretch-toil as he may, till he is sweated to the brink of death-starves mid a starving family-and is buried at the expense of the parish-a skeleton.