INTRODUCTION.

It is my lot, by no means an unpleasant one if life's energy, instead of life's repose, was not alike my taste as my requirement-to reside, at least for a season, amid Nature's beauties, in a small town of the West, whose shores are washed by the dark blue ocean, and whose inhabitants are sheltered from the keen blasts of winter by high and wood-clad hills.

Twenty years have scarcely passed away ere the little sequestered town of Luscombe, two hundred miles from the Metropolis, was a mere charming resort for bathing and repose, during the summer heat, for the inhabitants of the city of Exeter. Of constant residents

there were few; energy among its inhabitants, none. A soft climate, exceeding natural beauties, fine air, and warm hearts.

Here, as elsewhere, however, the mighty power of steam has done wonders. Right along the very shore, ofttimes washed by the angry waves of winter-straight through the dark brown rocks-beneath the high and beetling cliffs the railway steams onwards as an arrow's flight; and that which but yesterday was a place little known and little sought for, save by lovers of Nature's beauty and invalids, is now within eight hours of the mightiest city of the world.

The consequences are evident in a few short years all things have changed, the people as the place. There is a trifle more of energy, though, forsooth, much is still required to keep pace with the progress of the world.

The daily papers, which heretofore arrived on the evening of the second or third day,

come to hand, and are eagerly perused, on the afternoon of their issue in London,-indeed,

ere the setting sun of the shortest winter's day has sunk behind the western cliffs.

There is also a literary society. True, it is as yet in its infancy; that is to say, a mere agreeable assembly, with its limited library, stringent rules, and occasional lectures during the winter season, attended by those who seek recreation rather than information.

But time, it is to be hoped, will change all this for the better, as it has other things; and it is therefore well to let it remedy its own evils, rather than block up the path which leads to good, by some fatal obstruction.

Being one of the committee of this, as I have said, as yet simple institution, I ventured, during the winter past, to give two or three lectures gratuitously, with an earnest desire to add to its funds; taking, as I do, a lively interest in such societies, from the conviction

that they tend alike to the benefit of mankind generally as to social intercourse.

At the first meeting of the present session I was kindly honoured by a request that I would lecture again; and it was then that the war-cry from the Crimean mountains seemed to touch my heart, echoing back throughout the length and breadth of the beautiful vales of our once "merrie England," in sobs of agony from the hearts of those who mourned the dead. And I felt that if I could do nothing to mitigate their sorrows, it was, nevertheless, the duty of every man, however feeble his powers, to exert himself to the utmost for the benefit of those whom death had deprived of their natural protectors. And, with these feelings, I at once offered my services, to give a lecture on "Peace and War," for the benefit of the Patriotic Fund, illustrated with rough designs from my own pencil.

My lecture was so kindly received, so fully