you see the whole city of Noughtenborough spread out before you, like a raised map, and looking very active, cheerful, populous, and well-built. There are plenty of old-fashioned houses within the town, but you cannot discriminate at this distance. The cathedral is the chief object. The spire is a grand one, and tops everything for miles and miles around, while its celestory, or long range of upper windows, relieved by light buttresses, and crowned with still lighter turrets, forms a favourite resting-place for the eye, as it raises itself above the quiet stream of the Salmon Row, that winds round below the terrace on which we are lounging. The grey stone stands in pleasant contrast to the delicate blue of the sky, and the spire seems to direct all men's thoughts to the heaven towards which it rears its own head.

On just such a calm summer's day as is most likely to make men thankful for what they have, without grumbling about what they have not, the Mayor might be seen walking along the terrace aforesaid. It was a rare thing to see the Mayor walking alone; for although Mrs. Cracknell was rather an invalid, and seldom left home for any distance, he generally had a pretty daughter, married or unmarried, as the case might be, hanging on his arm, or else some old friend and companion in parochial or civil combats. But, on the present occasion, the Mayor was alone, and, we are sorry to say, had no companion but the uncomfortable words "THREE AND SIXPENCE."

Strange company, no doubt; and too little to harass the mind of our steady-going Mayor. Had it been an over-charge for cab-fare, he would have settled it easily enough, simply by not paying it, or by "committing" the extortioner. Had it been for a doll's bonnet, or a bottle of bouquet de la rose, he would only have kissed the extravagant little daughter, and thanked Heaven that he had wealth enough to purchase many more such little luxuries for the "whole lot," as he familiarly called his family. But this "THREE AND SIXPENCE" sate heavily on his soul. It was an incubus of other men's evils; it was an indigestion arising from dinners eaten by his neighbours; it was a silver imprint, in letters of current coin, telling a tale of other men's dishonesty, misappropriation, and imposture.

Just at that moment, the Very Reverend the Dean of Noughtenborough chanced to pass by, looking unexceptionably respectable, black, and sleek, with a hat and cassock that even Wildgoose must have reverenced. He moved politely, and said, "Good morning" to the Mayor, who returned both the salutation and the wish. But, as he turned away from the Dean, he mentally, yet almost aloud, repeated the mysterious words "THREE AND SIXPENCE." Anon, he met the Reverend Wittigift Grypnell, Canon of Noughtenborough, also out for his morning's walk, and looking quite as respectable, black, and sleek, as the Dean. Again polite salutations were exchanged, and again the Mayor muttered the words "THREE AND SIXPENCE."

What could there be in the presence of the Dean and Canon of Noughtenborough so painfully suggestive of "THREE AND SIXPENCE?” Was the poor Mayor degenerating into monomania, and were clergymen the especial irritants that developed it?

No; the solution of this enigma lay deep in the volumes of church history, over which our worthy Mayor had been poring; and it is from those volumes only that we can draw an explanation of his deep and solemn musings on this important financial subject.

Centuries ago, when scarcely a street-full of wooden houses formed a village where now stands the city of Noughtenborough, when the river used to flood the country ad libitum, and when monasteries were in their flourishing state, there lived a certain widow, who had long since lost her husband in one battle somewhere, and all her sons in other battles elsewhere. Bowed down with grief, her only solace was the society of her daughter, the fairest flower of the whole neighbourhood for miles around, but whose youthful countenance bore sad marks of early sorrow. Many had wooed her, but she clung to her mother; and daughter and mother lived on their life of mourning till age and grief began to make them more alike. They might have been thought sisters in years, as well as in sadness.

Wealth, abundant wealth, was theirs, and charity, the truest, the noblest, and the most unlimited, proclaimed the fact. Religion, deepened by grief, but not degraded into abject superstition, had adorned the monastery of Noughtenborough with a hundred testimonies of taste and liberality, while poverty

of every kind found relief proportionate to drowsy sermons on Sunday, and had large its deserts and its exigencies. families of children, all with exemplary and methodical regularity. In fact, they were all copies of the. last-all rubbings of the same brass; all equally black, grotesque, and imperturbable.

But in all their deeds of charity, the ladies St. Bridget's Mount had nothing so much at heart as the education of the most promising boys in their neighbourhood. Perhaps in the mind of the mother there arose some recol- Among other "regularities" of this worthy lection of the noble youths whom she had order, their visit to the school-house twice a seen speed forth in full steel, never to return, year was an important event. The Dean but to breathe out a last longing for a mother's appeared in his full canonicals, the Canons in blessing, while the horses of their retreating theirs, the boys conjugated and parsed, and foes trod their corses on the battle-field. all was "perfectly satisfactory." But there Perhaps the daughter bethought her of the return of her last remaining brother, pale and wounded; how she had held the water to his lips, bathed his parched forehead with her tears, and how he had laid his heavy head in her arms, and slept for ever. Perhaps it was such sad, such holy recollections, that made both the friends of every blooming boy they met, that wiped the tears of weeping and delinquent urchins, and that founded the school of St. Laura in Noughtenborough.

were still only the same number of boys on the foundation, and "twelve poore boyes" alone received the benefit of the education provided by the pious ladies St. Bridget's Mount. The master was permitted to receive other boys, as day scholars at an extra charge, and, as the original salary was only forty pounds a year, and he got much more by the day scholars, he neglected the others in proportion. In fact, the day scholars looked upon the foundation scholars as a respectable kind of "charity boys."

Attached to the monastery, the school was of limited extent and endowment, but suited Often had our kind-hearted Mayor lamented to the wants of the times. When ploughing the unimproved and neglected condition of was more fashionable than reading, and fighting the school, and sadly had he contrasted its more popular than either, no one would have present state with the intentions contemplated expected a London University or King's Col- by its pious and kindly founders. Clearly did lege in a place like Noughtenborough. But, he calculate how great ought to have been the as the magnificent cathedral rose out of the means of education now at the command of humble monastery, as fighting gave place to the townspeople, had the money, left for that human pursuits, and as refinement propor-purpose, increased in the same manner as the tionately increased, the number of the "to be incomes of the Bishop, the Dean, and the educated" had increased in a correspondingly Chapter. But, with all his careful investiga

extensive ratio.

tion of documents, his anxious searching into history, nothing satisfactory rewarded his labours. History appeared to be conveniently deficient just where a connecting link was most wanting; abuses seemed to have grown up and vegetated in hearty freshness, with a kind of tacit consent, and certainly without any visible opposition. One office suddenly disappeared, and the incomes of other offices suddenly became larger; buildings were removed, and private residences enlarged. Minor canonries subsided into paltry chaplaincies, and, in a word, the history of cathedrals seemed to be like that of the ocean, in which the large fish were continually swallowing up the small.

Such was, briefly, the history of the school now attached to the cathedral church of St. Laura, Noughtenborough. The Dean and Canons, who had stepped into the enjoyment of plenty of the old property of the monastery, were quiet, inoffensive people, dropped into good berths out of close fellowships, lucky tutorships to "nobs," or the happy chance of being related to a Bishop. They lived well, died highly respected, and their places were gladly taken by new comers like themselves. In fact, they were all alike. No one ever missed one of them, for if prosperity and port took him suddenly away, the new comer was so like that no one found any difference. They paid their stated guinea, or five pounds, Nor was the question of law much better. to particular charities, put a sovereign instead In the face of enactments against pluralities, of a shilling into the offertory, preached our Mayor could not discover a single Dean

or Canon who did not hold at least one other | perfectly independent of the Church, he could living, while the chaplains got nothing but not be robbed of any emoluments. He accordwhat had been first refused by the whole ingly held an assembly of the corporation and chapter. The statutes were either unsatis-other chief citizens; and sent in a quiet, but factory, or not forthcoming. But among all firm and strictly legal, remonstrance touching the black index of perjury, misappropriation, the present state of the School of St. Laura, and inconsistency, to which this melancholy Noughtenborough. study of a noble subject gave rise, one little, but distinct fact, was destined to make more impression on the mind of the Mayor, and, subsequently, of all England, than even a sanguine imagination would have ventured to prognosticate.

In the ancient statutes of the School, which had fortunately been so mixed up with other interests, that it would have been impolitic to have lost them, it was ordered that the sum of "THREE POUNDS SIXTEEN SHILLINGS" should be paid to each of the twelve poor boys aforesaid, upon their leaving the school, always providing that due report were made of their good conduct.

The Dean and Chapter, who had been very uncomfortable about certain similar disclosures which appeared to be going the round of all the similar institutions in the country, felt that their turn was come. If there had been the smallest opportunity for escape, they would have fought lustily. But they, like some of their predecessors in innovation, had the wrong sort of man to deal with.

The character of the Mayor, and his influence upon the citizens generally, were so well known, that the Dean and Chapter wisely gave up all hopes of bringing intimidation, flattery, or sophistry to bear on the present occasion. Accordingly, they sent a polite, but distant reply, avowing their intention of "considering" the subject; and at the very next examination three of the boys were dismissed with the sum of Three Pounds Sixteen Shillings.

Now it did so happen, that, of late years, the Three Pounds Sixteen Shillings, instead of, like the other monies similarly bequeathed, augmenting and fructifying three-hundred-fold or more, had unaccountably dwindled away to the magnificently insignificant sum of "THREE act of honesty, and had calculated too fondly AND SIXPENCE."

O most worthy Dean and Canons! Well might our Mayor pronounce these emphatic words as you passed in all your pride of black silk and respectability!

Was there some curse upon the funds left to these poor boys, that made them grow less, instead of growing greater? Was there some destroying angel that smote the fields that gave forth the corn whence these funds were

raised?

They had, however, relied too much on one

on its value in wiping out a multitude of old grievances. The memorial sent by the Mayor and Corporation was more general in its demands. Not only was the dilapidated state of the school-house pointed out in strong terms, but the inefficiency of the master, the growing educational wants of the population of Noughtenborough, the want of a corresponding increase of educational resources, and other similar evils, were dwelt upon in a tone and manner that showed a determination to go on with the work already begun. In fact, the tacit admission that they had done wrong, implied in the immediate restoration of the Three Pounds Sixteen Shillings in lieu of the "THREE AND SIXPENCE," which had dwelt

Or did they think that it was a good thing that boys should go forth into the wide world with a little learning, and with three and sixpence to assist them to get more? Had they made a minute calculation of their own college expenses from personal experience, and so painfully on the Mayor's mind, was a fine arrived at the belief that "THREE AND SIX-start for the opposing party, and the public PENCE" was the magical sum which should set press and the public thought so, and acted a youth on his career, whether in the scholastic accordingly. or the commercial world? Even supposing so, The Mayor proposes to establish twelve what had become of the remainder of the money? scholarships of thirty pounds a year each, to The Mayor was a quiet, but a determined, be of three or four years' duration, and to be man. Not being in holy orders, he had not furnished out of the misappropriated funds of the slightest fear of being called an "atheist" the last two or three hundred years, eked out for declaiming against imposition; and being by voluntary subscriptions, in which he will

bear no inconsiderable share; albeit he believes, I of three passengers picked up by the brig Marsden, on the morning after the burning of the Amazon, has addressed a letter, giving the fullest connected account of the calamity yet published, to the London Times. We copy the essential parts of it:

that, were anything like the original will of the foundress fully carried out, still larger provisions might be made, even without extraordinary funds. He also proposes that a proper staff of masters, at proper salaries, be engaged; and that the foundation scholarships, instead of being looked upon as "charity-school" affairs, and the boys snubbed by the master, be made matters of competition to the rest, and that parents be led to send their children in the hopes of gaining one of the substantial prizes so established, instead of being taught to pride themselves on the nobility of their parents, which enables them to pay two guineas a quarter to enable their children to laugh at those for whose use the school was originally and properly established.

The wind was right ahead, but she proceeded steadily on till about 9 o'clock, when the bearings of the cranks of the paddle shaft became so hot that she was stopped, until by pumping water upon them for an hour, she was enabled to proceed. The operation was repeated during the night and following morning, and on Saturday, at 12 o'clock, our position was lat. 49, 12 long. 4. 57. Towards evening the wind increased, still ahead-our course west and by south half south. Between 8 and 9 o'clock I was walking the deck with Mr. Whether these bright prospects and excel- Best, of Barbadoes, speaking of the state of lent ideas will be fully realised, we cannot the engines, on which they were then pumping. tell; but perhaps the fact that the most clever" You appear very anxious about those enboy of St. Laura is just going up to college at gines," said he: "is there any danger?" the expense of the Mayor, and a few other "None," said I," as long as there is plenty of friends of like disposition with himself, will sea-room: but, with our engines stopped, on a paobably shame the "authorities" into study-lee shore, I would not give much for our ing arithmetic a little, and reforming the corrupt and lazy system which clings as firmly and unflinchingly to the cathedral of St. Laura, Noughtenborough, as the ivy to the old stonewall around its meadows.

The Mayor is as hearty as ever, and will probably be returned to Parliament next year. If so, we will merely say a few words of caution to Deans and Chapters.

A wiser man than any of us once said, "Take care of the shillings, and the pounds will take care of themselves." In like manner we say, If you would not provoke too much inquiry, that may end in your destruction, beware of seeking to pay Three Pounds Sixteen with THREE AND SIXPENCE.

[Household Words.

chance for escape in such a night as we are likely to have from the appearance of the weather." "I hope," said he, "there is no chance of fire, as we should have two elements to contend with." "I hope not," I replied, "for we should have three, as it is evidently going to blow a gale, and we must then look to the fourth for our refuge." "God forbid!" said he, "three to one are fearful odds. Good night," and he went below. I then proceeded to the engine-room, and found the bearings very hot. I mentioned to one of the engineers my apprehensions for the night, and recommended to slacken speed; while we were yet speaking the bearings became so hot that the contents of the grease cup burst off like so much steam. Mr. Angus, the chief engineer, who had been most constant in his attentions, was immediately on the spot, stopped the en

DESTRUCTION OF THE AMAZON.gines, slacked the caps, and applied the pumps

NARRATIVE OF A SURVIVOR.

A FEW weeks since, the British steamer "Amazon " sailed from England for the West Indies, with a large number of passengers. A day or two after their departure, the steamer took fire and burned to the water's edge, nearly all on board perishing either in the fire or the surrounding ocean. Mr. Neilson, one

for two hours before he could proceed. I had several times during the day conversed with Mr. Angus on the state of the engines, which, he told me, he did not expect would get settled to their bearings for at least a week.

From the necessity of keeping the bearings constantly lubricated, a very large vessel of grease stood at the door of the store-room, which was under the galley. At about 111

I had not been in bed five minutes when I first heard the alarm-bell, and the cries of "Fire!" which were accompanied by the shrieks of several of the female cabin passengers; in rushing from my berth I saw the sparks astern, all clinging together with dreadful and flames ascending the main hatchway above | shrieks. the engines, and many of the passengers hurrying on deck in their night-clothes.