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"3. To this end, and to concur with naughty boys that gloried in evil, I have oft gone into other men's orchards, and stolen their fruit, when I had enough at home."

How far this original and vicious propensity for apples may have been derived from our first parents, appears to be an edifying subject of enquiry. In confirmation of the notion that such a taste is innate in our minds, and not acquired, it may be mentioned, that it was by shewing two apples, that Peter the Wild-boy was enticed from the woods into the town of Hameln in Hanover. He did not like bread, but eagerly peeled green sticks, and chewed the peel for the juice; he was also fond of eating grass and bean-shells. He was sent for to England by George I in 1725, and was placed under the disposal of the Princess of Wales, afterwards Queen Caroline, who gave him in charge to Dr. Arbuthnot, for the purpose of investigating his innate ideas; the controversy upon that metaphysical subject being at that time at its height. Peter is mentioned by Linnæus, Buffon, Rousseau, Monboddo and other writers.

Rousseau gives a comparative illustration of the mother-wit of a male and female child. A little boy and girl were forbid ever to ask for anything at table. It so happened that no one had thought of supplying the little boy's plate; upon which, after attracting the attention of the company, he gravely helped himself to salt upon his empty plate. The little girl was differently circumstanced; every body had been helping her, she had tasted of all the dishes at table except one. In order to taste this, she pointed in succession to every dish at table to which she had been helped, saying "I have tasted that"-"I have tasted that"-till she came to the object of her wishes, when she stopt suddenly. Upon which she is natur

ally asked, "Have you not tasted that ?" She answered, “No;" and let fall (abaissa) her eyes. Rousseau adds, " Si ce tourci paroit plus fin, c'est qu'il est ruse de fille, l'autre n'est qu'une ruse de garçon."

And as the talents and propensities, good or bad, of children will be considered when we treat of schools, so many of their occupations and some of their amusements seem to belong to the same chapter. One occupation, however, may be properly noticed in this place. Public sympathy and the attention of the legislature have often been feelingly awakened to the condition of little chimney-sweeps, sometimes of a very tender age; indeed some London chimneys are so small, that when you see a tiny urchin emerging from the top, you would say that he was made for the chimney and the chimney for him. It is singular that these little chaps have met with a poet, in Montgomery, who published The Climbing-boy's Soliloquies. The following is an extract, rather favorably selected from a good deal of twaddle :

I climb'd, I climb'd, and had to climb,

Yet more and more astray,

A hundred years I thought the time,
A hundred miles the way.

Strength left me, and breath fail'd at last,
Then had I headlong dropt,

But the straight funnel wedged me fast,
So there dead-locked I stopt.

Life, on a sudden ran me through!
Light, light all round me blazed,
Red flames rush'd roaring up the flue,
Flames by my master raised.

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However, the little chimney-sweep is not confined to a moment of bliss, he has at least one happy day in the year, May-Day. The sweeps are the only persons who preserve in London the memory of the ancient ceremonies of that day. The Jack in the Green, and the Lord and Lady May, who form a part of the processions of chimney-sweepers on May-day, are our relics of the May Games which were once celebrated with great festivity all over England, and which are of classical origin, being similar in point of ceremonies, and celebrated at the same time of year as the festival of Flora. Of these and most of our old English diversions antiquarians derive the details from a book written in horror of them by a Puritan, Stubbes's Anatomy of Abuses." The principal May-pole or Shaft for London used to be erected at Cornhill near the church of St. Andrew, which from that circum

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stance acquired the name it still retains of St. Andrew UnderShaft. The chimney-sweeps of London within living memory enjoyed the benefit of a legacy left them, I believe by Wortly Montague (husband of the celebrated Lady Wortly Montague); it was expended in an entertainment given in the gardens of Montague-House, which is at the corner of Portman-square.

SECTION III.

Miscellaneous Matters connected with Infancy and Childhood.

It has been a subject of inquiry whether there is any natural instinct which attaches man to the place of his birth? Walter Scott represents the sentiment as one which is inseparable from every feeling breast.

Breathes there a man with soul so dead

Who never to himself has said,

This is my own, my native land!

Certain it is, that not only our own birth-places have a charm for us, but we feel great interest in visiting the birthplaces of those whom we love or reverence. The inhabitants of Judæa did not fail to point out to pilgrims a real or supposed cave of the Nativity. The birth-place of the Arabian prophet is still approached with pious awe; I have noticed a more humble pilgrimage to the birth-place of Selden; and there are few who have visited the birth-place of Shakspeare on the banks of the Avon, or the house at Cotteswolde where Newton was born, and where his dial stands against the wall, but who regard the moments they spent on such occasions as affording some of the most agreeable traces in their memories. So general are these sentiments, that it will be matter of curiosity to hear what can be said on the other side. We may read it in the "Thoughts on Exile" of Lord Bolinbroke;

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