that the swine was under the table, but the day would come when he should be exalted and set upon the table. Just before Christmas the butcher came and slew him, and when he had cut him up, we mounted to the top of the brewhouse, and drew the flitches up the chimney, and fetched clean saw-dust, and kept up a fire for many days, to smoke-dry the bacon, which finally was pronounced prime-and then the hog which had been under the table came to be set upon it.

And yet more, in the garden was a summer-house. Neatly framed of timber was this house; floor and walls all framed snugly together, and handsomely was it thatched; and within, lined with moss, and adorned with shells; and very pleasant it was to drink tea in on a summer afternoon. But our good master thought it rather too near the noisy play-ground, and resolved to shift it to the bottom of the garden, a distance of at least half a furlong.

This was a glorious attempt sure enough. To shift a house? Why, the next thought would be to shift the church-steeple. But we set actively to work under the directive genius of our master. We dug round it, and laid bare its foundations; we then hoisted it with pullies and set it upon rollers. We cleared a way for it down the garden, and fixing ropes to it, hauled it with might and main, and it followed as steadily as a ship sails before a steady breeze. Let those conceive our exultation that can. Day after day, ay, I might almost say, night after night,—for we were there pulling and hauling, and shouting till late into the nights,-and when in our beds we could hardly sleep for thoughts of it, and in the morning jumped up, and hardly gave ourselves three seconds to throw our clothes on. We worked with blistered hands and shining faces, and clothes all smeared with clay and garden soil. But,

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at length, we brought the house safe and sound, without crack or rift, to its destined place; set it down, withdrew the rollers, filled in the soil, and gave three cheers with flourished hats, and then rushed in to see how it seemed, and how the prospect into the fields looked from it!

Ah! that was a joyous time! Could the transfer of a whole city give us half the wonder, much less the fresh feeling, the ardour of enterprise, the glory of triumph now?

BUT I must not omit a very marked event which occurred there. There came a philosophical lecturer. To our fancies, a philosophical lecturer resembled nothing but Socrates, or Plato, or Epictetus. We almost expected to see him in Greek costume, and with a venerable beard. But our philosophical lecturer turned out to be a tall and very gentlemanly-looking man-a Dr. Stancliffe, or some such name; who was very merry with us boys, and gave us all tickets of admittance to his lectures-probably because his room was not over crowded by better customers. To us, however, the exhibition was full of the most intense won

der and delight, and in return for our tickets, we gave the doctor credit for being the most extraordinary man in existence. We had some knowledge of the elements of chemistry, and had made men of pith, and bears of pith, dance under our master's electrical machine, from which we had learned some idea of the electrical power by sundry smart shocks and bangs which it had dealt us. But when this machine-for the doctor borrowed it of our master, and his galvanic trough too, no doubt to save the carriage of his own much larger ones-when these were in the learned doctor's hands, they did right wondrously indeed. We saw plants and flowers of rosin spread themselves on plates of pitch as naturally as nature. We gazed on the intense beauty of gases and metals in combustion, till we could hardly see anything else; and were so bewildered with flashes, and bangs, and hisses and explosions—and charmed with the miraculous metamorphoses of matter that went on before our eyes — liquids turned into solids, solids into liquids, water on fire, and fire burning in the water, and all kinds of things turning all kinds of colours, that we were philosophy mad for a month after-began galvanic piles that never were piled up, electrical machines that were never finished, and finished jars, bottles, pots, glass tubes, and such matters in such abundance, that our master in the end became half mad too.

The greatest of the doctor's exploits remains, however, to be told. I and Will Sedley, a youth of whom I have to speak presently, were sent off with a couple of covered baskets and a note from our master, to a farm-house a few miles from the town. The purport of the note, we were told, was to borrow a couple of pigeons and a couple of rabbits, which the note faithfully promised should be returned safe and sound the next day. We brought the

rabbits and doves, and delivered them safely to the doctor at the town-hall, where he was busy amongst his apparatus, preparing for his evening lecture. At the lecture we punctually attended, and were pretty well surprised to see a sheep's head set upon the table, with all the wool on it, as if it had been just cut off the animal, under the influence of the galvanic action, open its eyes wide, move its ears, grind its teeth, and appear as if it were actually coming to life without the body. But what was our astonishment to see the doctor deliberately take one of the pigeons, plunge it into a tub of water, and absolutely drown it. "There!" said Will Sedley to me, "that is a pretty go! Didn't they promise the old farmer to send them all back safe and sound? What will our master say to this? And what will the farmer say?" But to our still greater wonder there sate our master in the very front of the people, looking on the doctor's destruction of the pigeon, with a face as round and as pleased as if he had promised that the rabbits and the pigeons should be all drowned instead of being all sent back safe. Our astonishment was, however, yet to receive an addition; for the doctor, taking out the pigeon, and holding it up to the view of all the people, said, "You see, ladies and gentlemen, that this pigeon, which was just now alive, is now really dead; it is in fact drowned."

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Ay, by Jove, is it! and what will the old farmer say?” exclaimed Will Sedley, so far forgetting himself that he spoke loud enough for the doctor to hear him, who turned round and looked fixedly at us, but, perceiving that we were all silent, he went on,-"It is, as I said, really drowned, and if any gentleman doubts it, he is perfectly welcome to take it in his hand and examine it for himself." Hereupon, he handed it to a gentleman near him, who, after looking at its eyes and surveying it attentively, said, "It's dead enough,—