Nation! how he wonders what's gotten it! I can always tell when he's bin after it. I find iverything turned topsy-turvy i' th' drawers and iverywhere. But I'll take care that he never comes at it, a dirty rogue, him." "Well," said my friend, "you certainly have little comfort in him." "Comfort! no! my comfort lies in a different quarter. I look for very little comfort i' this world; but, thank God, there is a comfort, even here, and that's in religion! "We're all poor creatures! I found my business flourish; money came in; and yet I wasna somehow right. Iverything seemed so cowd and hollow. I war always sighing and malancholy i' th' midst o' plenty. My husband's goings on made me half-mad. Night after night I had to fetch him home from the pot-house. One day, however, comes a nice young woman to have a gown made, and she says to me- Missis, do you ever go to a place o' worship? ' 66 6 'No,' said I, 'I'm ashamed to say I dunna. To say th' truth, I dunna rightly know where to go to. Thou sees, I'm a stranger here, and I dunna like to go amongst folks as I dunna know.' Ah!' said th' young woman, I wish you would go with me on Sunday to the Methodists' Chapel; I think you'd be pleased; and perhaps you'd find a comfort you little dream of. On Sunday, oh! there is a nice man coming from Lunnon, they cawn him, Robert Newton.' 66 6 Well,' says I, 'as thou says so much, and axes me so kindly, I dunna mind if I do go. I'm sorely in want of summut; and I think it's because I dunna seek religion.' Well, I went. It was a big chapel, an' lighted up into a blaze brighter than any sunshine wally; and as I went in at th' door, says I to mysen-Now, wool this wench be ashamed on me? I shouldna wonder, for I 'm not just th' sort to be proud on for a companion; and it's one thing to ax a poor old woman like me to go to chapel, and another to like to be seen wi' her. But in we goen. It war as bright as day, and a pratty throng o' fine dressy folks there war; but up walks th' brave lass up th' middle of aw, and turning round to me-Come along, neebor,' says she, 'my seat's up here;' and in she takes me. By leddy! I niver felt so queer in aw my life! Aw eyes seemed to be set on me ; and well they might, for I seed that I must look like a crow in a flock o' pigeons. And what a man war that Robert Newton! Eh! what a tongue he had! Ivery word that he said went like a shot to my heart. He told us what sinful creaturs we aw war; and ivery time that he lifted his hand, it war like Moses smiting th' rock i' th' wilderness. Th' watter started out o' my heart, and th' tears run down my cheeks; and he soon seed that, and what dees he, but fixes his eyes on me, and pointing to me, shouts outThere! that woman is touched! She is reached! If she stands to what she has got, salvation is come to her!' and then one and another cried out- Christ Jesus grant it! Amen! Amen!' Well, I was niver in such a takking in my life. I was all of a tremble and a quake, and th' lights and iverything spun round wi' me. As we went home, th' young woman asked me how I Oh,' said I, 'I niver was so bad and niver so well in all my days. Oh! what a sinner I 've bin! Oh! what must I do to be saved?' liked it? 6 'You "Thank God! thank God!' said th' young woman. are in the right way now, and if you only go on it will be a blessed day for you, and for me too, you came to the chapel.' And now, aw my comfort 's i' religion. I go regularly to chapel. I'm in a class, and all the society is very kind to me. But dunna think that I've had nothing but swimming work of it. No, the divel came after me like a roaring lion,-and oh! what a nasty divel it is! "One day a young woman brought a gown-piece for me to make up. It was a very fine, rich, valuable gown-piece indeed; and when I come to measure it, then I found that there was a yard and a half of the stuff too much; and such good stuff too! “Tak it! tak it!' says the divel; they 'll niver know!' "But the Lord said in my heart, Dunna tak it, woman, none o' thine !' "Tak it!' again says the divel. it's and flinging it down, Away I goes back, But I was mistaken. He war at me aw the "Oh! what a day I had on't; till at last I ups and rolls the piece together, and off to th' young woman, says There! there's that too much!" thinking then what gladness I should have. The divel seemed like a raging going-fire. way home. He seemed to drive me up th' street like a great wind. 'Well,' said he, and what better art thou now? any fuller, or any fatter; any richer or any better? ' Oh! what 6 Art ta a nasty divel it is! Well, well, I mun bear my trials and my temptations, I reckon, like other folks; and learn not to set my heart too much on the things of this world. And that's what that dirty rogue of a husband o' mine is always telling me; and it's true, but I know why he tells me that,-it's because he wants to find th' owd stocking-full o' guineas. But I'll tak precious good care that he doesna. Oh! what a dirty rogue he 's bin to me,— he has driven me to God!" With this the old dame turned to march out, nodding significantly to my friend, but stopping suddenly, she looked at the two halfpenny-worths of red ochre which she held in her hands, and said, as to herself,-" Let me see, which is which? Aye, this is mysen, it's the biggest-tother 's for a neebor!" for THE FATE OF CITIES. Reflections on coming in sight of "New Portland Town," on the Finchley Road, Nov. 9th, 1845. I. THE throbbings of the City's plethoric heart II. So on the Indian wild the Banian tree Spreads vast its bowery branches; which bend down III. Man shall be social ever: civil states, Shall they for ever rise and fall? can Time Infrangible?-must national suns climb To noon-tide greatness but to slope thro' crime IV. Creation's scheme is progress: citied states Poised on her moveless wings,-oh, England! fear for nought. THE ENGLISHMAN IN PRUSSIA.-No. VI. DOMESTICITIES-MANNERS-MORALS-AMUSEMENTS GENERAL OBSERVATIONS-CONCLUSION. GERMAN houses are generally built upon the principle of a thorough draught—that is, of obtaining, not avoiding, a thorough draught. Opposite a door, window, passage, or gate-way, there is usually another door, window, passage, or gate-way; and by these means you continually find yourself in the centre of a strong current of air. It does not matter in the warm seasons of the year; but in the winter or other cold windy months, and more particularly in Rhenish Prussia, it is dreadful. In addition to this, the doors and windows do not fit close, so that you may sit and roast your body close to your stove, with a draught cutting your ankles off, from a long gap underneath the door, and another draught cutting your throat from the sides and chinks of the window-frame. We have sat at dinner on a cold windy day in winter, in a room like an oven, but with our feet as cold as ice, from the wind of a great stone hall below, that had a wide staircase opposite the front door (continually opening), the head of which staircase was directly facing the diningroom door, the said door not touching the floor by at least half an inch all along. As there are no carpets or other impediments to the wind, we had it "fresh and fresh" as any of the doors below leading to street or garden were opened, to say nothing of open windows. Then, the method of warming the rooms in winter by the German stove, is detestable. You are either made hot to suffocation, the horrid thing becoming red-hot, or it does not give out half enough heat, and is often the only warm thing in the room. If the stove was alight and warm, we were never able to convince any host or hostess of any house, public or private, that this fact was not the principal consideration, and that it was the person occupying the room who ought chiefly to be consideredit was whether he was warm or cold, that was the point; the stove being warm was, in itself, little or nothing to the purposethe stove was not lit to warm itself only. It was of no use ;-they smiled, or took it amiss, and went away, saying, "Englanders were an original people!" Sometimes the stoves are lit by an aperture from the outside of the room, so that the regulation of the temperature being thus totally out of your hands, they either freeze you, or regularly bake you, just as the case may happen; and you have no remedy but to run out of the room. In the comforts and luxuries of social life, Germany is a hundred years behind England. We should here observe that Germany is a nation of philosophers who do not understand ventilation. So much has habit the power to deaden perception, mental as well as bodily, that even men of science are confused, or do not distinguish the facts of the case. We have complained to German physicians of the dreadful oven which our apartment had become by means of the stove getting red-hot, and remarked that we could not set open a door or window, as the wind would rush coldly in, and hence there ought to be some method of ventilation adopted in their rooms; but the gentlemen aforesaid have deliberately pointed to the iron flue of the stove, observing that there was the ventilation! Dr. Arnott ought to go to Germany, and deliver a lecture on his stove at all the principal towns. While upon the subject of domestic economy, we have a few more uncomfortable observations to make. The beds are all too short. A short man can scarcely lie quite straight without his feet pressing against the foot-board. A tall man must either lie hunched up nose-and-knees, or his naked feet and ankles must stick out over the wooden barrier at the bed's foot, or else (as the pillows are generally higher than the head-board) his head must hang over the pillows, and dangle towards |