body calls him by it in the street, twenty people look out of window. Now, let anybody call "John Smith!" and half Holborn will cry out, “Well?”

As to other and famous Smiths, they are too strongly marked out by their fame-sometimes by their Christian names, and partly, indeed, by the uncommon lustre they attain through their very commonness - to make us at all squeamish in helping ourselves to their generic appellation at ordinary times. Who will ever think of confounding Smith, in the abstract, with Adam Smith, or Sir Sidney Smith, or the Reverend Sidney Smith, or James and Horace Smith, or Dr. Southwood Smith, or any other concretion of wit, bravery, or philosophy?

By this time, following, as we talk, our friend Jack up the road, we arrive at the first suburb tea-gardens, which he, for his part, passes with disdain: not our friend, John Smith, be it observed, for his philosophy is as universal as his name; but Jack Smith, our friend of the new hat and boots. And yet he will be a philosopher too, by and by; and his boots shall help him to philosophize; but all in good time. Meanwhile, we, who are old enough to consult our inclination in preference to our grandeur, turn into the tea-gardens, where there is no tea going forward, and not much garden, but worlds of beer and tobaccopipes and alcoves; and, in a corner behind some palings, there is (we fear) a sound of skittles. May no unchristian Christian hear it, who is twirling his thumbs, or listening to the ring of his wine-glasses! How hot the people look! how unpinned the goodly old dames! how tired, yet untired, the children! and

how each alcove opens upon you as you pass, with its talk, smoke, beer, and bad paint! Then what a feast to their eyes is the grass-plat! Truly, without well knowing it, do they sit down almost as much to the enjoyment of that green table of Nature's in the midst of them, as to their tobacco and "half-and-half." It is something which they do not see all the rest of the week; the first bit of grass, of any size, which they come to from home; and here they stop and are content. For our parts, we wish they would go further, as Smith does, and get fairly out in the fields; but they will do that as they become freer and wiser and more comfortable, and learn to know and love what the wild flowers have to say to them. At present, how should they be able to hear those small angelic voices, when their ears are ringing with stocking-frames and crying children, and they are but too happy in their tired-heartedness to get to the first bit of holiday ground they can reach?

We come away, and mingle with the crowds returning home, among whom we recognize our friend of the twisted cane, and his lass; who looks the reddest, proudest, and most assured of maid - servants, and sometimes "snubs" him a little, out loud, to show her power; though she loves every blink of his eye.

Yonder is a multitude collected round a Methodist preacher, whom they think far "behind his age,” extremely ignorant of yesterday's unstamped, but "well-meaning," a "poor mistaken fellow, sir;" and they will not have him hustled by the police. Lord X. should hear what they say. It might put an idea in his head.

The gas-lights begin to shine; the tide of the crowd grows thinner; chapel-windows are lit up; maidservants stand in door-ways; married couples carry their children, or dispute about them; and children, not carried, cry for spite, and jumble their souls out.

As for Smith, he is in some friend's room, very comfortable, with his brandy and water beside him, his colored handkerchief on his knee, and his boôts intermittent.*

*

Intermit; “to
"to grow mild between the fits or paroxysm." -JOHNSON.

A HUMAN BEING AND A CROWD.

HE reader will allow us to relate him an apologue. A seer of visions, walking out one evening just before twilight, saw a being standing in a corner by the way-side, such as he never remembered to have seen before. It said nothing, and threatened him no harm: it seemed occupied with its own thoughts, looking in an earnest manner across the fields, where some children were playing; and its aspect was inexpressibly affecting. Its eyes were very wonderful, a mixture of something that was at once substance and no substance, body and spirit; and it seemed as if there would have been tears in them, but for a certain dry-looking heat, in which nevertheless was a still stranger mixture of indifference and patience, of hope and despair. Its hands, which it now and then lifted to its head, appeared to be two of the most wonderful instruments that were ever beheld. Its cheeks varied their size in a remarkable manner, being now sunken, now swollen, or apparently healthy, but always of a marvellous formation; and capable, it would seem, of great beauty, had the phenomenon been happy. The lips, in particular, expressed this capability; and now and then the creature smiled at some thought that came over it; and

then it looked sorrowful, and then angry, and then patient again; and, finally, it leaned against the tree near which it stood, with a gesture of great weariness, and heaved a sigh which went to the very heart of the beholder. The latter stood apart, screened from its sight, and looked towards it with a deep feeling of pity, reverence, and awe. At length the creature moved from its place, looked first at the fields, then at the setting sun, and after putting its hands together in an attitude of prayer, and again looking at the fields and the children, drew down, as if from an unseen resting-place, a huge burthen, of some kind or other, which it received on its head and shoulders; and so with a tranquil and noble gesture, more affecting than any symptom it had yet exhibited, went gliding onwards towards the sunset, at once bent with weakness, and magnificent for very power. The seer, then, before it got out of sight, saw it turn round yearning towards the children; but what was his surprise, when, on turning its eyes upon himself, he recognized, for the first time, an exact counterpart of his own face; in fact, himself looking at himself!

Yes, dear reader, the seer was the phenomenon, and the phenomenon is a human being, any care-worn man; you, yourself, if you are such; or the Seer of the other sights in this book, with this difference, however, as far as regards you and us, that, inasmuch as we are readers and writers of things hopeful, we are more hopeful people, and possess the twofold faith which the phenomenon seems to have thought a divided one, and not to be united; that is to say, we think hopefully of heaven and hopefully of earth;