your reverence is earnest or joking, there's truth in your words, and something of that very same subject I have been saying to Gerald already; it was a different story two years ago; but once a married man, and with a stake in the country, such as that fine farm of Alice's, there's no fear but the Ponsonbys would soon take root and spread out their branches again." Gerald laughed, as he replied, “you forget Peter, that thanks to your advice-I have now a still deeper stake in the land where we're going." Old Peter shook his head with a dissatisfied air, and muttered again, ""Twas all very well with a single man, but I believe all this comes of my dislike to parting with Alice, or banishing her pretty face amongst the convicts and kangaroos." Alice whispered, "you should have warned me of that, the day you and dear Mrs. Vaughan lectured me so severely by the chimney corner." Peter turned away with a smile and a sigh, followed by Owen and Honor, who during this conversation had stood silently by. On their way homewards, the three talked long and earnestly, often stopping, looking round them, then proceeding again; but slowly as they went, Alice and Gerald were still greater loiterers, and found old Peter already before them when they reached the door. Much affected for many reasons, neither Alice nor Gerald could speak for a moment, when they did, it was to declare the impossibility of accepting such an offer such a sacrifice. But Owen soon joined them, and added his entreaties: we shall not follow out the long debate, or declare which of his listeners yielded first to old Peter's notions of duty; perhaps their convictions were aided by their consciousness of Owen's uncomfortable position; but however it was, the proposal thus suddenly broached was carried out in the end. Generously conceived, it satisfied all-something of elevated feeling supported the old couple in their parting with their only son, if it was a sacrifice, they were martyrs to the "honour of the old family," and its fortunes reviving under their auspices, left them without a permanent regret. Old Peter is still, as much as ever, apparent master of Dunmoyle; Alice as gentle, Gerald as warmhearted; while accounts of the improved happiness and well-doing of the loved ones far away, cheer their hearts with every homeward ship, and afford them the hope that either with themselves, or the young generation now springing up, there may yet be a happy meeting round the old fire-side. WHAT WE LOVE A WOMAN FOR. Some one, speaking of a beautiful girl in great enthu "Tis a pleasant prospect," he exclaimed, as shading his eyes with his hand, he looked up and down the bright|siasm, said he was almost in love with her, though her river, and along the blue mountain range, "'tis a pleasant prospect, have you anything to match it, Gerald, in that far land of yours?". "Not much use in remembering that at present," remarked Gerald, quietly. "But that is the very point," replied old Peter, impressively, "if half the people that go abroad and thrive used the same diligence at home, our poor country need not be as it now is-deprived of the best of its sons, not but that I say those foreign parts are a blessing from Providence, to open a field for those who have nothing to work upon here who have weary hearts-or heavy burthens-or families to provide for; yes they are a blessing, a salvation to many that would be outcasts only for them, in the troubles and temptations of these changing days. But for those that have home-bound duties, such as Alice there, who at this moment looks so smiling and careless, thinking she has cleverly shifted hers on the shoulders of an old man like me; yes, look at your land-it is convenient sure enough-at the opposite side of the river, but recollect what his reverence was saying just now, and ask yourself-am I likely to follow out the plans that you once thought your duty? And Gerald, to your honour and credit, be your industry far away from us all; by pursuing the same track; you may surely heap up great richesagain far away; but there's many an acre of the old ground in the market now, we all know the rate at which land is now selling, and I do say, as you have money and the opportunity offers, in my humble judgment, your duty would be in bringing back the old land to the old name again. As to Dunmoyle, maybe I have an inkling of duty too, and Owen and his wife confirm my views; but what I am going to say is entirely their own thought-the place they have commissioned me to propose to you, and I do so-Alice, Gerald-believing it for their happiness, for somehow things have not gone smoothly of late, though no one can say the fault is now in themselves; well they will be better off when they are all in all to one another, and so without any more beating about the bush, what they wish, dear friends, is to change places with you, go to your Australian home, and leave you this in exchange. understanding was by no means brilliant. "Booh!" said Goethe, laughing, "as if love had anything to do with understanding! We love a girl for very different things than understanding. We love her for her beauty, her youth, her mirth, her confidingness, her character, with its faults, caprices, and God knows what other inexpressible charms; but we do not love her understanding. Her mind we esteem (if it is brilliant), and it may greatly elevate her in our opinion; nay more, it may enchain us when we already love. But her understanding is not that which awakens and inflames our passions." What will the strongminded, plain woman say to such a heresy ? IE. If is the first palpitation of Hope, and the last of Regret. If is uttered by the Boy with careless confidence; by the Man with ceaseless reproach.-"We'll have such a in his eye the prodigious "innings" he shall enjoy. game o' cricket," says the boy, exultingly, having already master gives us a holiday," he continues, carelessly.-"I "If should now be rolling in my carriage," says the melancholy merchant, if I hadn't dabbled in the funds." Small if !" I should be hale and vigorous," says the dyspeptie, "if I had taken exercise, and had eaten rationally." Trifling if !-"My child would have been a comfort to me in my old age," sighs the weak father, "if I hadn't over-indulged him." Insignificant if! In a word, on this small if rests our whole existence; if is the moral and physical foundation of the universe! "How so?" asks the reader. Ir it hadn't been made!"-The Leader. DEATH. Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. The ashes of an oak in a chimney are no epitaph of that, to tell me how high, or how large, that was; it tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, nor what men it hurt when it fell. The dust of great persons' graves is speechless too; it says nothing, it distinguishes nothing. As soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldst not, as of a prince whom thou couldst not, look upon, will trouble thine eyes if the wind blow it thither; and when a whirlwind hath blown the dust of the churchyard into the church, and the man sweeps out the dust of the church into the churchyard, who will undertake to sift those dusts again, and to pronounce This is the patrician, this is the noble flower, and this the yeoman, this the plebeian bran.-Donne, SONG TO THE OLD AND NEW YEAR. FROM TENNYSON'S "IN MEMORIAM." Ring out a slowly dying cause, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out false pride in place and blood, The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Is the man a bit the better For his richest golden gains, Is the man a bit the better? If the man's no bit the better? Is the man a bit the worse Is the man a bit the worse? If the man's no bit the worse? DIAMOND DUST. LET Justice hold the balance, and Mercy turn the scale. MAKE other men's shipwrecks thy sea-marks. TRUE liberty allows each individual to do all the good he can for himself, without injuring his neighbour. A MISER is the gaoler of his house, and the turnkey of his wealth. IN literature, as in finance, much paper and much poverty may exist. SLANDER is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation his defence. RHETORIC-the quackery of Eloquence, which deals in nostrums, not in cures. BETTER break thy word than do worse in keeping it. THERE are some who write, talk, and think so much about vice and virtue, that they have no time to practise either the one or the other. Be sure your ground is good, and then be sure you maintain your ground. DID universal charity prevail, earth would be a heaven, and hell a fable. AVARICE starves its keeper, to surfeit those who wish him dead. IT is less difficult to hide a thousand pounds than a hole in one's coat. FLATTERY is compounded of the most sordid, hateful qualities incident to mankind, viz.,-lying, servility, and treachery. HE whose first emotion, on the view of an excellent production, is to undervalue it, will never have one of his own to show. GRAVITY-a mystery of the body, invented to conceal the defects of the understanding. NEVER expect any assistance or consolation in your necessities from drinking companions. MAN is a result, the growth of many yesterdays. THINK not a petty goodness of to-day may blot out the sin of yesterday. HATE not opinions for being contrary to thine own. It is not certain but thou thyself mayest be in the wrong. He who spends all his time in sports is like one who wears nothing but fringes, and eats nothing but sauces. It is the ordinary way of the world to keep folly at the helm, and wit under hatches. SOME men use no other means to acquire respect than by insisting on it; and it sometimes answers their purpose, as it does a highwayman's, in regard to money. A POET who fails in writing becomes often a morose critic. The weak and insipid white-wine makes at length excellent vinegar. HASTY words often rankle the wound which injury gives, but soft words assuage it, forgiving cures it, and forgetting takes away the scar. TIME is the transient and deceitful flatterer of falsehood, but the tried and final friend of truth. THE Earth, with its scarred face, is the symbol of the past, the air and Heaven, of futurity. TASTE a quick and just perception of beauty and deformity in the works of nature and art. WERE We to take as much pains to be what we ought, as we do to disguise what we are, we might appear like ourselves, without being at the trouble of any disguise at all. Printed and Published for the Proprietor, by Joux OWEN CLARKE, (of No. 8, Canonbury Villas, in the Parish of St. Mary, Islington, in the County of Middlesex) at his Printing Office, No. 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street, in the Parish of St. Bride, in the City of London Saturday, December 28, 1850. PROSPERITY! SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1851. WR have strange notions of Prosperity in this country. We think of it, and judge of it, as if we were pure materialists, and had no higher aim than mere material wellbeing. Prosperity, with farmers and landlords, means brisk markets, good prices, and high rents; with merchants and manufacturers, it means great demand, and a roaring trade; with operatives, mechanics, and labourers, it means high wages and plenty of meat and drink. When warehouses are full of bustle and business, orders are plentiful, and great waggons bear their heavy loads of goods towards quays, canal wharves, and railway stations; when ships arrive from all quarters of the globe, laden with the richest stores of the world's wealth, and crowd our harbours and dock-yards; when railway traffic increases; when clerks in warehouses, and young men in shops are kept sorting and putting by, writing and making out accounts, under the blaze of gas, until far on into the night; when operatives and mechanics are working long hours, and the labour of women and little children is greatly in demand; when factories are running full time, and the workers therein have barely time to eat their meals, to dress themselves, and to sleep ;-at such a time do we speak of the country as being in a state of "great prosperity;" and then we look at the revenue returns, at the tables of exports and imports, all greatly increased, and comfortably congratulate ourselves on the rapid "progress of the nation." It is questionable, however, whether all this influx of wealth, all this industry and labour, all this increase in material wealth, is to be regarded as indicative of prosperity in its highest sense. If man's chief end were to manufacture cloth, silk, and cotton goods-hardware, toys, and china; to buy in the cheapest market, and to sell in the dearest; to grow corn, rent land, and graze cattle; to live for mere money profit, and hoard or spend, as the case may be; then prosperity might be so construed. But is this the chief end of man? Has he not faculties, affections, and sympathies, besides muscular organs? Has not his mind certain claims, as well as his back and his pockets? Has he not a soul as well as a stomach? And ought not "prosperity" to include the improvement and well-being of the former as well as of the latter order of powers? But "prosperity," as we now understand the word, ignores all moral and intellectual progress. The application of science to the art of production ought to have abridged toil, and liberated a certain portion of the time devoted to toil, leaving it to be devoted to the cultivation of the higher powers of man's nature: this would have been prosperity. But instead of this-though the machinery of Great Britain is said to produce annually equal to some six hundred millions of hands-we have obtained [PRICE 13d. little or no liberation of the time of our working millions for purposes of moral or intellectual culture; and they are only pronounced to be in a state of "prosperity when they are so fully occupied in toiling, that they have no time left for thought-when they are working to the fullest extent that the law will permit, and have no leisure reserved for domestic intercourse, for reading, or for the improvement of their minds in any way. Nor is this prosperity, even in the low sense in which it is usually understood, always a material prosperity. It facilitates accumulation among the few, but the mass continue, and are kept poor. "The first effect," says George Combe, "of our stupendous mechanical inventions threatens to be, to accumulate great wealth in the hands of a few, without proportionately abridging the toil, or greatly adding to the comforts of the many. This process of elevating a part of the community to affluence and power, and degrading the rest, threatens to proceed till the disparity of condition shall have become intolerable to both,-the labourer being utterly oppressed, and the higher classes harassed by insecurity. Then, probably, the idea may occur, that the real benefit of physical discovery is to give leisure to the mass of the people, and that leisure for mental improvement is the first condition of true civilization, knowledge being the second. The science of human nature will enable men at length to profit by exemption from excessive toil; and it may be hoped that, in course of time, the notion of man being really a rational creature may meet with general countenance, and that sincere attempts may be made to render all ranks prosperous and happy, by institutions founded on the basis of the superior faculties." At the present time, we are in the midst of a period of great prosperity. Wages are good, employment is abundant, demand is great; we are busily engaged in stocking the markets of the world, and heavy-laden ships are daily leaving our shores for foreign parts, full of the products of our industry. How fares it with real national progress? Are our schools better filled? No!-The children are in the workshops and factories. Are homes better tended? No!-The women, in many districts, are in the shops and mills too. Are Mechanics' Institutes more thronged? No!-The operatives have no time to attend them, and it is not unusual in the manufacturing districts, when a time of prosperity occurs, for the Mechanics' Institutes and Mutual Improvement Societies at once to fall off in the number of operative members. Are our hospitals less frequented? No! In prosperity seasons they are the fullest. At Paisley, when the last commercial panic had thrown thousands out of ali work, the hospitals were at their emptiest. And why? Because the working people had then less to spend on whiskey; and hence fewer diseases. Mere money is no indication of prosperity. A man's nature may remain the same, it may even grow more stunted and deformed, while he is doubling his expen-instructed, as regards their social duties, it would not be, diture, or adding cent. per cent. to his hoards yearly. It may safely be inferred from the fact, that it is rarely, if is the same with the mass of men. The increase of ever, found to exist in the numerous cases where earnings their gains may merely furnish them with the increased not greater than those of the artisan class are all that are means for gratifying animal indulgences, unless moral bias gained by the head of the family, when employed upon kept pace with physical advancement. Double the gains matters where education is necessary. It would be monof an uneducated, overworked man, in a time of pros- strous to conceive of any man, whose lot is cast among perity, and what is the result? Simply that you have the easy classes, that he should exhibit such a degree of furnished him with the means of eating and drinking selfish indulgence; and, if such a case were found to more; and that is all. Thus, not even the material well-exist, the individual would be execrated as a monster of being of the population is secured by that condition of brutality. Take even the case of a clerk, with a salary things, which is defined by the political economists to be of £80 a-year, a small fraction beyond 30s. a week, and "National Prosperity." And so long as the moral ele- it would be considered quite exceptional, if it were found ments of the question continue to be ignored, this kind of that anything approaching to a fourth part of the earn"prosperity" is, we believe, calculated to produce mis-ings were spent upon objects in which the wife and chilchievous results quite as likely as good. It only gives a dren have no share. The peer, the merchant, the clerk, new term, and an increased action to ignorance. the artisan, and the labourer, are all of the same nature, The wages of the majority of the operative and labour-born with the same propensities, and subject to the like ing classes, in the manufacturing towns, are now higher, influences. It is true they are placed in very different when compared with the prices of food, than they have, circumstances-the chief difference being that of their probably, ever been before. Trade is universally brisk, early training-one, happily, which it is quite possible in and orders are so numerous that they can scarcely be exe- some degree to remedy, and that by means which would cuted. Yet we question whether, in one working-man's in many ways add to the sum of the nation's prosperity family in a hundred, anything is being done in this time and respectability." of good wages to make a provision against a future season of adversity, There is but a very small increase of the deposits in the savings' banks, and they are chiefly those of domestic servants and small tradesmen. Of the depositors at Manchester, Leeds, and other manufacturing towns, scarcely one-fourth belong to the manufacturing operative class. Their practice is, to live well while wages are good, to eat well and drink well, and lay by very little if anything for the future. The consequence is, that when a commercial panic occurs, and work becomes scarce, you have many of them in a state of destitution in less than a month, and they can then only live by pledging their household goods, by charity subscriptions, or by the aid of the poor's rates. "Where are all the workmen?" said a master to his foreman, one day, on going the rounds among his builders; "this work must be pushed on, and coveredin while the fine weather lasts." "Why, Sir," said the foreman, himself a shrewd fellow, "this is Monday, and they have not spent all their money yet." Hence Monday has become a kind of saint's day amongst working men, in some trades, and they speak of it as "Saint Monday," observing the day as a holiday, until their money is spent! The amount expended by the working classes, on worse than useless luxuries, on this and other days of the week, almost exceeds belief. Mr. Porter lately read a paper before the British Association, at Edinburgh, in which he showed that about twenty-one millions sterling were annually expended, chiefly by the working classes, on gin, whiskey, and rum; twenty and a half millions sterling on beer, stout, &c.; and about seven millions sterling on tobacco and snuff! "There is," says Mr. Porter, "one consideration arising out of this view of the subject, which is of a painful character, and which, if it were hopeless of cure, would be most disheartening to all who desire that the moral progress of the people should advance, at least at an equal pace with their physical progress,—it is, that among the working classes so very large a portion of the earnings of the male head of the family is devoted by him to his personal and sensual gratifications. It has been computed that, among those whose earnings are from 10s. to 15s. weekly, at least one-half is spent by the man upon objects in which the other members of the family have no share. Among artisans, earning from 20s. to 30s. weekly, it is said that at least one-third of the amount is, in many cases, thus selfishly devoted. That this state of things need not be, and that, if the people generally were better The habit of improvidence among working men is, we believe, one great cause of their present impotency, as a social and political power in this country. No class has ever yet accomplished anything that lived "from hand to mouth." What can any body of men accomplish who are ever hanging on the verge of destitution? By improvidence and thriftlessness, men not only keep themselves low, but they lose in self-respect, as well as in the respect of others. A little store of capital is a source of power in every man. He is no longer the mere sport of commercial crises. He can look the world in the face. He is to some extent a master. He can dictate terms. He cannot be bought or sold. He can meet bad times without trembling for the fate of his wife and children; and he can look forward with cheerfulness to an old age of comfort and independence. There is a dignity in every attempt to economize and rise above the lot of the mere physical labourer. The practice of self-denial gives strength to the character. It indicates forethought, prudence, and virtue. Where a bad habit has been formed, the conquering of it is a noble task to undertake. Irrespective of the moral consequences, which are most valuable, the victory in such a case gives more real and enduring delight, than is to be found temporarily in the indulgence of the vice so conquered. When a population is thoughtless and imprudent, no kind of material prosperity will benefit them. Unless they exercise forethought and economy, they will alternately be in a state of "hunger and thirst;" in their time of distress, they will be haunted by regrets, which will be miserably compensated for by the animal indulgencies of more prosperous epochs. That men may exercise forethought, they must be intelligent. Their minds must be cultivated; they must seek knowledge, and learn to love it. When they have caught a taste for higher pleasures, they will cease to indulge in those which are degrading, Hence our earnest desire is, for the diffusion of greater intelligence, purer virtue, and nobler tastes, among the people at large. Unquestionably the extension of education would lead to the growth of provident and self-denying habits among the working class, by giving them truer views of life, and more serious thoughts as to its great duties and responsibilities. It is knowledge and virtue alone that can confer dignity upon man's life; and the growth of these in a nation are the only true marks of its real prosperity-not the infinite manufacture and sale of cotton prints, toys, and hardware. "Let the working man," says Sterling, "try to con nect his daily task, however mean, with the highest the other. The ladies were first-cousins, the gentlemen thoughts he can apprehend, and he thereby secures the rightfulness of his lot, and is raising his existence to his utmost good. It is because the working man has failed to do this, and because others have failed to help him as they ought, that the lot of labour has hitherto been associated with what is mean and degrading. Yet there is no lot more honourable than that of the labourer: would we compare the idler with him?" friends. Each had two daughters, had possessed large properties, and had been ruined by the same misfortune; and when all affairs were finally settled, retired upon almost the same income,-the Seldens being richer by £20 per annum-a large sum on little means! The Beech Villas, so called from three fine beech trees which grew beside them, were accordingly let on a nineteen year's lease and preparations were made for the reception of the new inmates. The ladies had each received from their uncle £250 to begin upon: great was the joy both experienced on the receipt of this unexpected piece of good fortune, and consultations at once were set on foot, as to what it was best to do with it, their husbands having declined to give an opinion, or to interfere in the least degree. "Well, Fanny," cried Mrs. Selden, "what have you determined upon? I have been kept awake all night, and am as far from making up my mind as ever." To buy good, plain, solid, comfortable furniture," replied her cousin, "which will materially diminish the rent, and enable us to live with less stint." "Well, to be sure," observed Laura; "the things which Mr. Taylor has put in are rather shabby; but that only signifies for the drawing-room, from which I shall take the curtains for the dining-room, and get handsome ones for IT, and a larger mirror, and a grand pianoforte, by changing our old ones and paying the difference; and I must have a pretty pendule! I know of a beauty, but as the works are worn I shall have it cheap; and these things dress up a room so well, you know! give it an air of elegance! I shall, you perceive, by this good management, not spend a great deal, and shall still have a pretty little sum to give the girls lessons in singing, or to spend on an excursion to the sea-side, which we all require, I am sure, after all this grief and worry." "It would be of little avail to the peace and happiness of society, if the great truths of the material world were confined to the educated and the wise. The organization of science thus limited would cease to be a blessing. Knowledge secular, and knowledge divine, the double current of the intellectual life-blood of man, must not merely descend through the great arteries of the social frame; it must be taken up by the minutest capillaries before it can nourish and purify society. Knowledge is at once the manna and the medicine of our moral being. When crime is the bane, knowledge is the antidote. Society may escape from the pestilence and may survive the famine, but the demon of ignorance, with his grim adjutants of vice and riot, will pursue her into her most peaceful haunts, destroying our institutions, and converting into a wilderness the paradise of social and domestic life. The state has, therefore, a great duty to perform. As it punishes crime, it is bound to prevent it. As it subjects us to laws, it must teach us to read them; and while it thus teaches, it must teach also the ennobling "You and I, Laura," answered Mrs. Loftbridge, truths which display the power and the wisdom of the "seem to view the matter differently; we have both great Lawgiver, thus diffusing knowledge while it is ex-good cottage pianos, and a grand, one would be as cumtending education; and thus making men contented, and happy, and humble, while it makes them quiet and obedient subjects. It is a great problem, yet to be solved, to determine what will be the state of society when man's physical powers are highly exalted, and his physical condition highly ameliorated, without any corresponding "I shall have everything plain and necessary for my change in his moral habits and position. There is much drawing-room, as in all the rooms," pursued Mrs. Loftreason to fear, that every great advance in material civiliza-bridge; "for, if you remember, instead of bringing a tion requires some moral and compensatory antagonism; but, however this may be, the very indeterminate character of the problem is a warning to the rulers of nations to prepare for the contingency, by a system of national instruction, which shall either reconcile or disregard those hostile influences under which the people are now perishing for lack of knowledge." MANAGEMENT. bersome as overpowering in our little rooms. I have no mirror, small or great, and do not think one necessary." "But," interrupted Laura, "if you furnish all your rooms, you will have nothing left, for drawing-room furniture is so expensive." mirror, candelabras, and china jars, as you did, I preferred retaining beds and bedding; no part of our little abode will lack convenient furniture, for we cannot, Laura, dispense with the comforts we have been so long habituated to, although we may, and must, with the luxuries. My grandfather's watch, in a stand, will do duty as a pendule; excursions and parties are out of our power; and time will soon reconcile us to the change in our position." Mrs. Selden was silent, but not convinced; the ladies separated, and proceeded to manage matters selon leurs idées. Mrs. Loftbridge was soon in order; the paper and paint were clean, so she did not change them, although the taste Mr. Taylor had displayed did not coincide with her own; but her cousin was shocked with this, and disgusted with that, and, in the end, spent more than she at first intended; however, she was rewarded by saying her drawing-room looked very pretty, "oh, so much prettier than dear Mrs. Loftbridge's," every one said, that she was comforted. The small room, which Fanny converted into a store-room, Mrs. Selden filled up with the dis Ir is inconceivable the difference of disposition that may be perceived in people brought up in precisely a similar manner, and the difference of comfort and real respectability of appearance, in the same position, with the same fortune, these differences of disposition give rise to. I am led to this remark by what I have lately observed in the arrangement of two ladies, formerly but slight acquaintances of mine, but which circumstances have ripened into real friendship with one, and considerable intimacy with the other. In the village in which I reside (Brambleton), two small houses remained long unte- carded drawing-room furniture, whilst Mr. Taylor imme nanted. They were built by the same proprietor, exactly alike; had each two sitting-rooms, four bed-rooms, a kitchen, and large garret; each had a small garden and a court, containing all the usual conveniences. Mr. and Mrs. Loftbridge engaged No. 2, and Mr. and Mrs. Selden diately furnished another house with that the Loftbridges gave up; but Laura was delighted with her boudoir, "it was so convenient, in case any one wished to write, or work, or mend, or do any of the horrid things they were, alas! forced to do now.' Mrs. Loftbridge devoted her |