wandering sort of a life now five and fifty years, here today, and gone to-morrow; for it was my misfortune, when I was young, to be fond of changing."-" You have been a traveller, then, I presume?" interrupted I. "I cannot boast much of travelling," continued he, "for I have never left the parish in which I was born but three times in my life, that I can remember; but then there is not a street in the whole neighbourhood that I have not lived in, at some time or another. When I began to settle and to take to my business in one street, some unforeseen misfortune, or a desire of trying my luck elsewhere, has removed me, perhaps a whole mile away from my former customers, while some more lucky cobbler would come into my place, and make a handsome fortune among friends of my making: there was one who actually died, in a stall that I had left, worth seven pounds seven shillings, all in hard gold, which he had quilted into the waistband of his breeches."

I could not but smile at these migrations of a man by the fireside, and continued to ask if he had ever been married. "Ay, that I have, master," replied he, "for sixteen long years; and a weary life I had of it, Heaven knows. My wife took it into her head, that the only way to thrive in this world was to save money; so, though our comings-in were but about three shillings a week, all that ever she could lay her hands upon she used to hide away from me, though we were obliged to starve the whole week after for it.

"The first three years we used to quarrel about this

every day, and I always got the better; but she had a hard spirit, and still continued to hide as usual: so that I was at last tired of quarrelling and getting the better, and she scraped and scraped at pleasure, till I was almost starved to death. Her conduct drove me at last in despair to the alehouse; here I used to sit with people who hated home like myself, drank while I had money left, and ran in score when anybody would trust me; till at last the landlady coming one day with a long bill when I was from home, and putting it into my wife's hands, the length of it effectually broke her heart. I searched the whole stall, after she was dead, for money; but she had hidden it so effectually, that, with all my pains, I could never find a farthing."

By this time my shoe was mended, and satisfying the poor artist for his trouble, and rewarding him besides for his information, I took my leave, and returned home.

THE LIGHT OF STARS.

THE night is come, but not too soon;

And sinking silently,

All silently the little moon

Drops down behind the sky.

There is no light in earth or heaven,
But the cold light of stars:
And the first watch of night is given
To the red planet Mars.

Is it the tender star of love?

The star of love and dreams?
Oh, no! from that blue tent above
A hero's armour gleams.

And earnest thoughts within me rise, When I behold afar,

Suspended in the evening skies,

The shield of that red star.

O star of strength! I see thee stand
And smile upon my pain;

Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand,
And I am strong again.

Within my breast there is no light
But the cold light of stars;

I give the first watch of the night
To the red planet Mars.

The star of the unconquered will,
He rises in my breast,
Serene, and resolute, and still,
And calm, and self-possessed.

And thou, too, whosoe'er thou art,
That readest this brief psalm,
As one by one thy hopes depart,
Be resolute and calm.

Oh, fear not in a world like this,
And thou shalt know ere long,
Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.

LONGFELLOW.

THE HAND

THE sense of touch has the widest gateway and the largest apparatus of all the senses; for, though we are in the habit of speaking of it as localized in the fingers, it reigns throughout the body, and is the token of life in every part. The nearest approach to death

which can occur in a living body, is the condition of paralysis or palsy, a death in life, marked in one of its forms by the loss of that sense of touch which is so marked an endowment of every active, healthy

creature.

Into the consideration, however, of touch, as exercised by the entire surface of the body, I do not intend to enter further than to state that the tactile susceptibilities of the skin depend, as do the peculiar endowment of the other organs of the senses, on its plentiful supply with those wondrous living chords, or nerves, which place in vital communication with each other all the organs of the body, on the one hand, and that mysterious living centre, the brain (and its adjuncts), on the other. Our simplest conception of an organ of sense is supplied by the finger, which, whether it touches or is touched, equally realizes that contact has been made with it, and enables the mind to draw conclusions regarding the qualities of the bodies which impress it. Now, after all, every one of the organs of the senses is but a clothed living nerve conscious of touch, and they differ from each other only in reference to the kind of touch which they can exercise or feel. Keeping in view that to touch and to be touched is in reality the same thing, so far as the impression of a foreign body is concerned, we can justly affirm that the tongue is but a kind of finger, which touches and is touched by savours; that the nostril is touched by odours; the ear by sounds; and the eye by light.

The Hand, with its fingers, is pre-eminently and