"The child," as Wordsworth says, "is father of the man!" and the ruling passion will be strong in us till death. But we have been doomed in our time to meet with "heavy blows and great discouragements." Disappointment hath been hard upon us. We heard of the fireman's dog,-and to hear of him was sufficient to set us at unrest. We have not knowingly missed a simple fire in the metropolis for some years past: we have squeezed into every crowd, and narrowly escaped being run over at different times by every engine of every insurance company. We have had our pockets picked our toes crushed-our eyes devoted to perdition, times out of number and in vain! We never saw him; and now, unhappy that we are, they tell us he is dead! We read in a French paper, but a few months ago, of a dog who supported his ownera humble polisher of boots and shoesby rolling himself in the most promising mud-heap he could pick out, and then rubbing himself, as if by accident, against the pedal integuments of the exquisites who happened to cross the bridge whereon his master took his stand every morning, duly furnished with bottle and brush. We were in Paris last season, and our first visit was of course to the bridge in question. Alas! the boot-cleaner had cleaned his last, and the dog-there was a sausage shop close by his wonted stand, and it was more than hinted that "shal I go on?" as Tristram Shandy says-" no!" The Chinese, the beasts! eat dogs, but they eat them knowingly. To the French "ignorance is bliss."

applied to sundry of our biped acquaintance, only because we know that even the most censorious of them are ever used more in love than in anger. Par exemple, we called ourselves "Graceless dogs" a little while ago-and you might have seen with half an eye that we looked back with considerable complacency, if not with positive approbation, even upon the follies we stigmatized. There are many sad Dogs among real Dogs, but we do not like them one whit the less;

shall we introduce you to one? Reach down your Shakspeare-oh! you have it on your table already'tis a good sign, and you have risen in our estimation. Now then, open the Two Gentlemen of Verona-Fourth Act-Fourth Scene-Enter Launce and his Dog. There the ladies are gone out for their morning ramble, so you may venture to read it aloud. Now that same Crab is the saddest dog it has ever been our hap to meet with " in tale or history." But there is, nevertheless, much to be said for him. He was never intended for a delicate"messan-doggie"-he was born to move in the middle ranks of canine society, and was spoilt, like many other very good sort of people in their way, by being elevated above his proper station. It was a gross error to introduce him among the "three or four gentlemanlike dogs under the Duke's table."-the result might have been anticipated. We should as soon have thought of taking him through the green-grocers' shops in Covent Garden Market. Yet how feelingly does his master lament his irrepressible currishness! What a catalogue of misfortunes has he patiently undergone to shield his misdeserving pupil ! And what an ungrateful, dry-eyed stoical beast of a dog is he-what a "cruel-hearted cur" not to "shed one tear"-not to "speak one word"

when "even a Jew would have wept to have seen the parting" of Launce and his kindred! And yet, you see, the dear, good, kind, forgiving soul loves him! and were it all to do again, he would bear it without a murmur! Were Launce, Sancho Panza, and Corporal Trim, those three unparallelled dependants, to come in a body to apply for our vacant footman's place, our whole kennel would plead irresistibly in favour of the first:-" Follow

2 H

us, friend, thou shalt serve us. If we like thee no worse after dinner, we will not part from thee yet."

Pray sir, do you read Greek?-We are delighted to hear it, for we are about to quote some, and it will save us the trouble and the inadequacy of a translation. We are going to present to your notice a "gentlemanlike dog" in reduced circumstances. Nay, do not smile, for the picture is, to our thinking, as beautiful and as touching a one as ever was painted by that "blind old man of Scio's rocky isle," whom there are so many found to praise, and, alas! so few to read. Ulysses, the disguised Ulysses, and Eumæus, that trustiest of swineherds, have been conversing together before the palace, in whose polluted halls are revelling the licentious suitors, uncared for, unheeded, unheard by all save one, and that one-but let the Poet speak for himself.

̓Αν δὲ κύων κεφαλήν τε καὶ οὔατα κείμενος ἔσχεν *Άργος Οδυσσήος ταλασίφρονος, ὃν ῥά ποτ' αὐτὸς

Θρέψε μὲν, οὐδ ̓ ἀπόνητο.

Yes! though he lay "uncared for, in much filth, and (alack the day!) swarming with dogticks"-though the limb was powerless with age and the frame wasted with hunger-the life, and the love, and the memory were strong in the old dog yet-the eye might have doubted, but the ear was sure:-"the trick of that voice he did well remember"-the servant knew his Lord!

Οὐρῇ μέν ῥ ̓ ὅγ ̓ ἔσηνε,καὶ οὔατα κάββαλεν ἄμφω·

*Ασσον δ ̓ οὐκ ἔτ ̓ ἔπειτα δυνήσατο οἷο ἄνακ.

θανάτοιο,

Αὐτίκ ̓ ἰδόντ' Ὀδυσῆα εικοστῷ ἐνιαυτῷ. Now turn to the episode in the original-and forgive us, if you can, that we have not quoted every line and every syllable that it contains.

One more dog-passage, gentle reader!-one more. The description does not come up to the inimitable simplicity of the old Greeks-as indeed how should it?—but it is very, very beautiful,-and quote it we must

He,

for our own pleasure, if not for yours. He is the dog of Roderick, that "guilty Goth," whose fortunes have been so well and nobly sung in the lay which bears his name. too, like Argus, had a disguised master-he, too, listened doubtfully to a familiar, though long unwonted, tone: voice which fell upon his ear with a -he, as he lay,

"" eyeing him long And wistfully, had recognised at length, Changed as he was, and in those sordid weeds,

Follow the exile as he retires from "that most painful interview”—unrecognised alike by the mother who bore him—by the maid who trusted : known only to, followed only by-a dog! Mark him at last, "yielding way to his over burthened nature flinging his arms around his mute companion-and bursting forth into that touching cry of blended agony and affection

"Thou, Theron, thou hast known Thy poor lost master!-Theron none but thou!"

We will not add one syllable more to mar the effect of those two most beautiful passages.

K.

I HATE railroads. Any one can love railroads, or like railroads, or praise railroads-but I hate railroads. I hate to be obliged to arrive at a railroad office a quarter of an hour before starting. I hate to be obliged to go and stand between certain pieces of wood nailed across and along to ask for a place. I hate to be made to go in at one end, and out at the other, just as if I had already commenced my imprisonment, and as though the turnkey had fastened down upon me all his iron, steam, and coals. I hate to see all my luggage and baggage taken from me, and placed, "malgré moi," on a stone pavement, quite naked and unprotected-boxes, trunks, shawls, ruffs, books, umbrellas, maps, sandwich boxes, all in one hurlyburly-and then to be told that I may go and claim my luggage, and arrange my luggage, just as I like. I hate to have to do with porters who never touch their hats, and who cannot be civil, because you are forbidden to give them a silver sixpence. I believe the poor fellows have not even pockets in their breeches, lest a stray shilling should by chance find its way into them. I hate to be made to wait for a steam-engine, and for a steamengine never to wait for me. Horses will wait, and men will wait-and even sometimes, when you are young and handsome, or old and wealthy

or neither, and very agreeable (pre cisely my case) women or ladies will wait for you (ay, and the Lancashire witches too); but a steam-engine will not wait, for all its enjoyment appears to consist in rattling away, as hard as its lungs will admit, from Dan to Beersheba, and from London to Jericho, without so much as kissing its hand to the nymphs and maidens on the road. Then I hate to be "numbered." I had rather be named than numbered and both are very disa greeable. To think that I was No. 71, and my daughter No. 73, though I am only 40, and my daughter only 18. It is a monstrously unpleasant thing when the "guard" asks No. 71 if he will give his ticket, and if No. 74 wishes to get out at "Tring." Then sometimes No. 74 "takes the

liberty of observing to No. 70 that it is a very fine day"-and "begs pardon of No. 72, and would be glad to know if he would have any objection to change places? This ticketing system looks so much like the incipient portion of prison disciplinelike the preparatory steps of a police surveillance and so much resembles the system adopted at Paris, where a poor old apple-woman is numbered 13,194, and her apple stall 17,643her dog, who is blind, and asks for alms, with a leather saucer in his mouth, 33,275; so that the police agent, if he has to make a charge against the aforesaid dog, begins his complaint as follows:- "Monsieur le Commissaire, As I was proceeding down the Rue St. Honore, in the section 36 of the district D, I saw 33,275 seated near 17,643, which was presided over by 13,194." And then follows the charge of the dog begging, and of the policeman reproving, and of the old woman getting angry, and of the dog barking, and of the table falling, and of all being taken into custody; the result of which is, that 33,275 is ordered to beg no more, 17,643 to fall no more, and 13,194 to scold no more a policeman such as 263, belonging to section Y of the arrondissement, No. IX. Well now, for my part, I hate this numbering and ticketing system-just on the very principle that I always did hate algebra. "Figures are figures, and letters are letters," said my dear maiden aunt Betsey; and she meant by that a great deal more than the ignorant would at first imagine. In fact, she meant, "down with algebra," and "long live the four rules of arithmetic." She would have had a horror of numbering a man, for she used to repeat the portrait of man by Buffon, and say, "everything pronounces him the sovereign of the earth.' Then I hate to be boxed in the rail coach, or rail waggon, with a projecting impediment against all love and affection between myself and my next-door neighbour. Why, some of the pleasantest hours of my life have been, when some soft, gentle creature, in the form of a female stage-coach com

Then I hate not

to the moon and back again, you need not be afraid of being jolted out. How infinitely preferable is the dear, oldfashioned system! When there is a long hill and a fine prospect, the horses stop, the guard gets down, opens the door, invites you to alight-you offer your arm to a lady-or, what is still more agreeable, the rest of your fellow-travellers descend, but the lady "prefers your pleasant society," and remains tete-a-tete with you, whilst thoughts breathe and words burn. But nothing of this "sentimental" travelling ever takes place in a railway coach. Poor Sterne would have been sadly put to it, if he had thus been compelled to journey in the French provinces! Then I hate never to be jolted, never to be rumbled about, to be whirled along iron bars, just like bales of goods, without a road, and only with rails. to alight when the horses ought to change; and when coals are taken in, instead of a fresh team, and cold water, instead of oats and beans. I hate not to hear the horses shake themselves, after having run their stage, not to see the fresh and bright blood four-in-hand, harnessed so brightly, and looking so pretty and prancing, reading for starting, waiting our arrival; not to receive the visit of the agile bar-maid, or buxom landlady, arranging their lips so invitingly, and asking you, you would like to take something?" Why are we to be deprived of their soft and sweet invitation, only to have in exchange the groanings of a huge iron tea-kettle, bursting with rage, or with steam? I do protest most heartily against this substitution of ugliness for beauty, hot steam for sweet breath, and angry roaring for smiling looks. Then I hate it "to be expected" that I am to eat Banbury cakes, and drink bottled ale at a precise distance from London, and so to eat and so to drink, wet or dry, light or dark, cold or warm, in the open air. No soup-no glass of hot brandy and water-no ham sandwich-no quiet mutton chop just done to a turn, and all ready for eating in a quarter of an hour-no dinner-no breakfast-no supper; but Banbury cakes and cold ale, from January to July, and from July to January. this monopoly shall be submitted to," said I, "we shall soon be prohibited from eating and drinking any thing

panion, overcome by sleep, or wearied out with laughing, has at last placed her soft head on my soft shoulder, and gently slept for some two hours, unconscious of all that was passing around her, and absorbed in visions of bliss, or in dreams of nothingness. But none of these shoulderings, none of these tender and delicate attentions, can be practised or enjoyed in a steamcarriage. Oh, no! on the monster goes, sometimes at 20, then at 30, and often at 40 miles per hour, hissing, foaming, firing, snorting, groaning, and even bellowing, dragging behind him so many isolated beings, all divided by bits of lined and padded wood, called "head cushions," from each other, unable to speak to a neighbour, much less to make love to one. The man who invented such contrivances as these was some fierce Malthusian, some unregenerated Godwin, some deplorable, cross, fusty, wretched, disappointed, ugly old bachelor, who, after having made as many offers of marriage as he was years old, took to hating the softer sex, and condemning the rest of his species to travel with some No. 75 or 77, in a coach from London to Manchester, without scarcely being able even to see her features. Then I hate to be fastened in a coach, from which I cannot escape, except with the certainty of immediate death, without the permission of a steamengine. I have seen horses for forty years. I have seen them on a theatre, and on a field of battle; in a camp, a stable, a carriage, a palace, a draw ing-room; and every where I have found them obedient, tractable, kindhearted, gentle, timid, noble. When I say "whoh," or "whoa," to a horse, why, he whoh's at once-or, in plain English, he stops. But you may say, or shout, "whob," or "whoa," to a steam engine, till your very heart shall break, and your very lungs shall burst, and he will pay no sort of attention to you whatever. There you are, six of you, isolated, each so many inches of coach, great or small, Daniel Lambert or good Mr Beardsall, the anti-intemperance Baptist minister of Manchester, as thin as a shaving, and quite as dry-you must all have the same number of inches, and no intrusion on the territory of your neigh bour. Yes, there you are, fastened in, boxed in, so well secured, that if you had to make O'Rourke's journey

"If

"If