bed-room. A clean, neat, fresh and comfortable bed was prepared for him, and he, Mr. Jacob Clarke, having taken possession, was soon buried in oblivion to all, save the enjoyment of a sound sleep.

CHAPTER XVI.

'Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day,
In your limbs, as in a cell,
For the tyrants' use to dwell.

A DAMP, dull, thick mist hung over the Vale of Lindford on the following morning, a mist which the spring-time often brings to the neighbourhood of rivers, and little could be seen beyond the opposite houses, as Mr. Clarke hastily attired himself in his rusty suit, and

prepared to desend to the scene of his evening's carousal. As he proceeded to dress and make those slight ablutions, which he conceived necessary for the adornment of his person, he thus soliloquised.

"So the good people here and hereabouts want nothing-they are contented and happy, willing to be serfs, ready to submit to the despotic wishes of those in wealth and ostentation, willing to be ground to the dust, and exist on a small pittance, hardly earned by the sweat of their brows, never complaining-always rejoicing. This is an unhealthy state of things which cannot last, indeed it ought not. I shall cast a fire-brand into their last year's harvest. It must be my duty-it is my duty towards those I serve, to make them know their own strength; a horse, poor animal, if he knew his would no longer submit to the tyranny and oppression of man; and why should

reasoning creature, formed after God's image; such things must not be; I must open their

VOL. I.

eyes to their weakness and show them their strength, or we shall end in being slaves."

Such were the thoughts of this amiable delegate of confusion and disorder. Such are the sentiments, alas! of many, who having nothing to lose are desirous to gain by the misfortunes of their fellow men. Heaven help us from such fiends in human shape, they are a curse to the country at large, and yet men like Clarke are tolerated and permitted to go free, filling the heads of the ignorant and idle with unsound sentiments under the most noble banner of liberty and justice; terms which they disgrace, sentiments which they dishonor only in proportion as they misjudge them.

"And this lad," continued Jacob, putting the finishing tie to his rusty black silk neckcloth. "I read his character well. A little learning the most dangerous of acquisitions -much idleness, the mother of all evil-an ill-directed mind, wishing to be above his

present position, but neither having intellect to gain his object, or knowing well what to be at; probably, fancies, as boys will, that he is in love with one of these rich farmer's daughters, named last evening, who, doubtless, with ignorance equal to his own has led him astray; and yet there is cunning if nothing better in his eye; he is evidently not one of the contented and happy of this vale of Rasselas, decidedly not desirous to serve the great man who lives in the big house, or to eat the bread given in charity by friend Smythe In good hands he may be made useful; I must speak to the boy, and if so be he inclineth that way, may take him with me to London, the only place where young ideas are nourished in a hot bed till they bloom into activity and where old ones thrive. But the air of these rural pastures is keen, healthy and appetising, notwithstanding the quart of fog I have swallowed when opening my casement to peep on its rural beauties; fogs I see