his mind with the feal of bleffednefs, and given him perennial youth as a dower. That He may continue to bless him with years of health, and happiness, and the power to cheer the world with his graceful and genial pen, is the prayer of the present writer, and, he trufts, the prayer of all who know the works of Leigh Hunt, the most blithefome Prifon bird that ever warbled in a cage.

The chapter on Leigh Hunt was written in the beginning of the year in which he died. I do not feel that it is neceffary to change a word then written. This good and generous man died on the 28th of Auguft, 1859. "Just two months," fays his fon Thornton, "before completing his feventyfifth year he quietly funk to reft." He died as we fhould like to fee thofe we love die-ferenely, hopefully, confidingly, and leaving behind him a memory bright and fresh as are the fields and flowers in fpring. His books are dear to all readers; and, in the cordial and admiring words of his friend Mr. Carlyle, they are "the image of a gifted, gentle, patient, and valiant human foul, as it buffets its way through the billows of time, and will not drown, though often in danger; cannot be drowned, but conquers and leaves a track of radiance behind him." A track that will widen and deepen as time advances.

THOMAS COOPER

AND THE PURGATORY OF SUICIDES.

Ar all times of crifes, men of

men.

power, of genius, or talent, are sure to come to the top, and become, by the mere neceffities of the cafe, the leaders of The weak, noify, and time-ferving will rife from their very lightnefs; and when at the top will foon burst like the bubbles that they are, and be seen and heard of no more for ever. The true, strong men will pass through and furvive the perhaps temporary excitement which was the immediate cause of bringing them out, by the worth which raised them above their fellows. These are always the few; the many are the cyphers, and these the figures which give them value and effect. Of all fights, the faddeft in the world is a nation without a ruler; a crowd without a leader; a mob without a head to guide and control it. We said the faddeft; perhaps there is one still fadder; the same nation with a falfe ruler, the fame crowd with a falfe leader, the fame mob with a falfe guide. The

history of all lands affords examples of all these cases; our own times have witneffed them, and our own country would afford inftances innumerable. At fuch times, how glorious does the true, wife, honeft, brave, and unselfish man appear! His voice brings order where before was chaos; his counfel gives confidence where before was only diftruft; his presence gives joy and hope where before all was forrow and despair. Let the world ever thank God for, and ever duly honour, its great men !

Perhaps no period of great excitement, no time in which the hopes, fears, defires, and paffions of men were thoroughly called into play, was ever more barren of truly wife and great men, than the epoch of English history known as the Chartist agitation. What Carlyle would call mere "windbags," and noify "falfities," and hollow "fhams,' were produced in abundance. But of all the men who then "defied the tyrant," and offered themfelves as << martyrs on the fhrine of liberty," and who were, on the platform, fo loud and frothy in their denunciation of the "millocrats," the "bureaucrats," the "moneyocrats," the "ariftocrats," and the oligarchs," and who fo magnanimously offered themselves as willing facrifices for the cause of the "unwashed,"-how many are there now whose names are treasured by the people, and held

"

as facred in their memories, as those of men who with fingleness of purpose ferved the cause, and not themselves? Of the officers of the "old guards,” how many will this generation bequeath the remembrance of to the gratitude and honour of its children? Alas, how many deferved fuch remembrance! You might tell them on your fingers, and not exhauft your digits. Among the few, however, who will have a place in the memory, and praise, and honour of the future; among the few whose names are a glory to the Chartist cause; among the few who, firft being known as Chartist leaders, afterwards built themselves a name which we shall "not willingly let die;" among these few, and chiefeft among them, must we place the name of Thomas Cooper, the author of our last Prison Book, the "Purgatory of Suicides."

Thomas Cooper was born in Leicester, on the 20th of March, 1805. His father died while he was quite an infant, and he was thus left to the care of his mother. She was in every way equal to her task; for Cooper, like every other remarkable man which the world has poffeffed, was fortunate in his mother. She was capable of any facrifice to ferve her child; and she had to endure much in order to fpare him. Soon after his father's death, they removed to Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, and the struggle of life for the poor widow and her fon was

a bitter one. love and felf-denial, which are the almost universal poffeffion of women, and efpecially of mothers, The frequently went without food herself for the fake of her child. The poor lad had often to go without shoes and stockings, and he suffered severely from privation and fickness. His mother taught him to read; and he, like all men who have ever diftinguished themselves, was early feized with a paffion for reading. It was not an eafy thing to fatisfy that paffion in Cooper's circumstances. Here again his mother's noble love ferved the poor ftudent. Meal after meal did that glorious woman deprive herself of, in order that her boy might have the means to procure books. Like fo many others who have achieved a name and fame in this world, Cooper can indeed fay, "All that I have, all that I am, I owe to my mother."

With that deep abiding power of

In the course of his long defence at Stafford, Cooper thus admirably narrated the difficulties. under which he made his pursuit of knowledge:"At fifteen years of age, after many promises of patronage had been broken, my poor mother was compelled to fend me to the ftall to learn the humble trade and craft of a fhoemaker. I plied the awl and bent over the laft till I was three-andtwenty years of age; and if I can look on any period of my life with unmingled pride and plea

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