the candle. I put it away sometimes, for I think I see in it a wretched "unacted drama;" but to hide it in drawers is useless, to shut it up in a sheath is equally futile: in some unaccountable manner it always escapes, and haunts my toilet-table like a Presence. I would not shave with it for all the world.

Then, again, I have a razor, and it is a perfect type of its class, which, like Claverhouse, is never satisfied without taking its sauguinary draught before breakfast. Let me be as careful as I might, it never fails when I take it in hand to satisfy its appetite upon my devoted chin; it must dim its polish by one spot of blood at least. I verily believe that it was forged out of Blue Beard's key. To make up for these perplexing idiosyncrasies which dwell in the best of steel, in most men's dressing-cases there lurks a good, shabby, hard-working Cinderella of a blade, which nothing appears to put out of temper. I have one of this class, and what it has gone through there is no telling. My wife cuts string with it. I use it to whip off a button upon occasions. My little boy now and then seizes and whittles the table with it; sometimes-horrid idea-it cuts his slate-pencil! Yet it always seems up to its work. Like man, it ever appears to be "superior to its circumstances;" when all the rest are out of order, this one alone is "faithful found."

How many razors collect about a man in his lifetime! What becomes of them? They are never used up, but after certain service go, like old pensioners, to rest in odd corners, where, perchance, they will be turned up in the next generation by the little urchin who watches you with wonder at your toilet, and gets repaid by a dab of the shaving-brush-turned up rusted in their sheaths, to bring back a thousand old memories, and the features of a dear father's face nigh faded from the tablet of the mind.

There can be little doubt, then, that razors share a common humanity with us. How many worthless blades, set off in ivory and silver, recline in velvet-cushioned cases, whilst the real good stuff, shut up in plain black horn, is looked upon with suspicion.

I have often thought, as I have seen the men go up to the coach doors, and flourish their open blades in the blinking eyes of the astonished insides, that even in such apocryphal quarters the true thing might be found. Imagine, good reader, the shame that must come over a sterling-minded well-regulated razor, at finding itself in the hands of one of that nomade tribe whose delight seems to be to frighten old gentlemen just going on long journeys, by performing a scalping movement with an open blade between each finger, within three inches of their heads! Imagine the wound inflicted upon its spirits by the indignant denunciation of the aforesaid old gentleman of "The swindler with his Brummagem trash." Such remarks must be cutting even to a heart of steel. But we must not pursue our theory much further, for fear that our wit, as well as our razor, might begin to lose its delicate edge.

A GARDEN SCENE.

How the great sun is shining on the slope
Of strawberry-roots! Ah! there's my pet
Running her white hands under the cool leaves,
Diving for the red fruit tassels. I'd have
Some painter now to catch her eager look,
Arch brows, and lips out-blushed by berry juice;
And just that glint of gold athwart her brow,
Let through the rent in her broad summer hat,
Drooping as languid as a poppy flower

On her sunned shoulders. "Twould be a sketch
To hang in my Sir Joshua gallery.

A single word would bring her running up,
Her finger tips like honeysuckle buds
Five-parted, deeply dyed with odorous stains
And holding some seed-speckled shining prize
Plucked with its brother-blossom.-I'll take

The shady holme-walk leading to the root-house.
Old Joseph sees me coming down the path,
And wipes his forehead with a serious look;
I'll warrant now he's got some curious graft
Or monster flower to show; I hate such tricks
On Nature (plague take the parchment names
The pruning knave gives to God's simple flowers)
And yet there's something in the earthy man
That poses one; his shoes look just like roots.
I've watched him in the hot-house, muttering
To the long, hairy creeping plant, hung up
By four thin threads to the great branching vine;
And slow I've seen him dodge the blue-bottles
With thick, unwieldy fingers 'cross the panes ;
Then stealthily go feed the Venus' fly-trap,
And as the delicate green leaves curled round
The glist'ning villains, how the clod would grin !
And then he grows such rare prize orchises,
Close-winged papilions, and hum-ceased bees
So delicately poised, they 'd cheat a boy
With ready cap-he'll win the medal yet.
The broad sunflowers at the high noon stare,
Their comb-stored discs alive with busy drones;
Wide open stand the bell-mouthed cactus plants,
Like thirsty tongues their golden pistils loll
Over the flaring scarlet; flashing spar
Piled rockwise round the pond, burns up
The fine streaked feather grass. Such noons

I love my great north drawing-room sketched round
With sheathéd water-lilies, and children white knee'd
Striving 'gainst soft streams with minnow nets;
And as the gauzy curtains swell,

To watch the black and yellow belted bees
Towards the south peach wall, with dreamy sound
Sail slowly by.

15

THE "TIMES" ADVERTISING SHEET.

IF Dr. Jedlor lived in these days, and I wished to combat his facetious idea that "Life was a capital joke, nothing serious in it," I should put into the goodnatured old gentleman's hand a copy of the Times Newspaper. If there is anything terribly in earnest in the world it is the advertising sheet of this paper. Was anything ever more fearfully alive? Every advertisement seems to fight with its neighbour for pre-eminence and distinction, and each page seems to writhe and wrestle all over like a dish full of maggots. What fleets of vessels are just ready to start for the lands of gold, each one possessing the best accommodation, and boasting the ablest captain. What stalls of horses fill up another column, each one a greater bargain than the other. What galleries of old masters just ready to fall under the hammer, each picture the most genuine of the lot. What ranks of servants out of place, all ticketed with their respective "wants." What groups of poor young gentlewomen "seeking a comfortable home" in the nurseries of the fortunate. If the spectator for a moment stops to dwell upon such advertisements, the iron enters into his soul, and he must seek relief by a philosophic contemplation of the mass. At the top of the column, Love now and then stands making signs with finger upon lip-" Florence" gives "a thousand kisses" to her distant and secret lover. A mother implores her darling boy to "return home and all will be forgiven;" or an injured wife, with vehement words, leaps to the first reconciling words of her lord. Above the shouting of chapmen, the puffing of quacks, and the thousand voices of trade, we hear these fervid outbursts of the human heart, and solitary cries of anguish, with a strange and startling distinctness.

Sometimes, like Garrick's face, the pages will appear half in tragedy half in farce. Mark that long list of hospitals, crying out for aid for the maimed and sick-and then beside it the

sprightly row of theatres, smilingly displaying its tinsel attractions. Here an economic undertaker calculates for bereaved relatives what he can "do" a gentleman's funeral for, with "hearse and plumes and two coaches and pairs," or for what he can afford to put a defunct artizan underground, by means of the Shillabeer buss. In the very next advertisement an enterprising stationer boasts the largest assortment of wedding cards, and finds everything (but happiness) for the bride. Then, again, "The original Maison Deuil" draws attention to its "poignant grief mantles and inconsolable trimmings." Every ingredient of life seems mixed in this ever open book: we laugh, we cry, we pardon, pity or condemn, as morning after morning it brings be-fore us the swiftly-shifting scenes of this mortal life.

In the ancient Greek theatres, where the actors had to give their recitations in the open air, they made use of a brazen mask which projected the voice to a sufficient distance to be heard by a vast multitude of people.

The brazen mask of the present age is this advertising sheet, behind which all conditions of people, day by day, plead their wants to the entire nation. What a strange crowd in one continual stream passes through the doors of the little room in Printing-house-square, where this mask is erected! The poor shrinking girl, who, for the first time, is obliged to come in contact with the hard world, brings her advertisement, offering herself as a governess for the sake of “ a comfortable home"-the clever schemer, who makes a living of the postage stamps he exacts from those to whom he offers some extraordinary advantages -the enthusiast who brings his five shillings to have the end of the world proclaimed by a certain day-the poor widow who has come to plead "to the benevolent" for her destitute children— and the agent of the millionaire advertising for a loan of millions-all shoulder each other in this room. What passages of life might not the attendant clerk read, to whom this continual throng as it were exposes the secret necessities of the heart!