rub-a-dub to their greatness, and blow their glory to the world from blatant brass. Now, the Turveytopians have no soldiers; but they give the same amount of honour to their school masters. They have a belief that it is quite as noble to build up a mind as to hack a body; that to teach meekness, content-is as high a feat as to cut a man through the shoulder bone; that, in a word, it is as wise and useful, and surely as seemly in the eye of watchful Heaven, to fill the human brain with thoughts of goodness, as to scatter it from a skull, cleft by the sword in twain. Hence, the schoolmaster in Turveytop is a great social authority, honoured by the state. The savage counts his glories by scalps; the refined man of war by his gazettes. The general kills five thousand men-defeats some twenty thousand. He may have picked a quarrel with them, that he might pick his sprig of laurel, and rejoice in lawful plunder. He has done his work upon humanity; he has acted his part in the world-a world of human sympathies and he becomes earl, or steps up duke. It is his rightful wage, paid by a grateful hand. The schoolmaster of Turveytop numbers his scholars; shows the heroes he has made; the victors over self among his army; the troops of wise and peaceful citizens he has marshalled for the field of life, and is honoured and rewarded accordingly."

"And you were sent to one of these great pedagogues-these laurelled teachers?"

"Excellent old man!" cried the Hermit. "He was sorely tried by some of us. The perverseness, the stupidity of some of my schoolfellows passes belief; yet the master's sweetness of spirit was unconquerable. Some of his pupils he never could teach to spell the commonest syllables. There was one boy-in our world he would have passed for about sixty-five -who never could master the word good. For years, as I understood, he had been haggling at it. Now, my poor little boy,' I have heard the schoolmaster cry a hundred and a hundred times, a melancholy smile upon his reverend face, now, my child, spell me good.' Whereupon the pupil-a thin-faced, greenish-eyed fellow, and, as I learned, a former dealer in foreign stocks, would answer 'g-o-l-d.' And thus it had been with him for years; and thus, if alive, it may be with him now. Wretched little dunce! He could not comprehend any other way of spelling good than g-o-l-d. He, how ever, was not alone in his dulness. No; there were twenty other scholars from the outside world who still stumbled at the syllable. Will it be believed?-There was one boy, about fifty-two, with a drum-like belly and a somewhat purplish nose. It was whispered that, ere he was brought to Turveytop, he had been a vicar, more than apostolically sharp for his tithes. Well, sir, you would have expected

higher intelligence from such a scholar; yet somehow he never could master the monosyllable. 'Good' would be the word of the teacher, and still the fat-bellied boy would spell 'p-i-g.' spell 'p-i-g.' How our dear schoolmaster would look perplexed! How plainly I could see him striving to account for the confusion in the pupil's mind, that still from year to year had gone on spelling 'good' with the letters 'p-i-g.' The simple monosyllable was a trying task for many of the scholars. Indeed, how few of them-from the defect of their previous worldly education-could spell the word the proper way! The old admiral I have already spoken of, always insisted upon spelling it— g-r-o-g.' From my heart, I pitied the schoolmaster; for whilst other teachers were seeing the young Turveytopians advance in all their daily lessons, and so, doing their master honour in the land, our poor pedagogue was doomed to sit almost hopelessly amid a crowd of dunces, whose dull or debauched faculties rendered them incapable of the easiest tasks. And yet no word of passion or reproach ever escaped the teacher. 'Poor little boy,' he would say, with a sigh, having hammered for an hour and more at the word 'good,' while some foxhunting urchin, with his hands in his pockets, and a brassy confidence in his face, would spell 'dog;''poor little boy,' the giant schoolmaster would exclaim, it is not your fault, poor heart! no, it is the dark, dreadful world you have come from!' It is a sad thing to think of," said the Hermit, "yet are there many, many pupils, growing hoary, and still mis-spelling good,' nay, dying, and still unable to master that easy monosyllable. For I know not how many hundred years King Arthur there, in the preparatory school of Turveytop, has been sulking with his thumb in his mouth, still spelling 'b-l-o-o-d' for good.' The last time I saw him he had on a dunce's paper cap, made out of a poem written in this world to his especial honour."

"And King Arthur, and King Sebastian, too, you have talked with them in Turveytop?" we cried.

"Most certainly," said the Hermit. "And Numa Pompilius?"

"And Joanna Southcote," cried the sage. "Is it possible?" we exclaimed. "Joanna Southcote! Then she is not dead? That is, she will keep her word, and come back to us?"

"And open a baby linen warehouse,' said the Hermit; "she told me as much for the comfort of her believers; though, to confess the truth, I have never until now bragged of my acquaintance with her. As, however, she has been given up as incurable by the Turveytopians, there is but little chance of her returning to this world, since they suffer no one to come back who does not at least promise con

"And what her malady?" we asked. "Lying, sir," answered the sage. "And her great grief is, that nobody in Turvey top will believe her. Poor thing! How she laments her loss of this world! She dwelt alone in a little cottage, and being famous for her tea-cakes-for there is a sort of sanctity that hath a quick sense of kitchen comforts-was much visited by King Arthur, Sebastian, and other dunces of Turveytop. I deny it not; I have made one at these meetings. She was a sleek-looking, cosey woman, with a voice like a flute. On my first visit to her, for there was something about her that somewhat tickled me,"

"Her tea-cakes?" we ventured in the smallest

voice to observe.

"Well, sir," said the Hermit, with a smile, "when there be not other virtues, let even teacakes pass for something;-on my first visit, she would have devoured me for news. Anything stirring in my way in London?' she asked. I answered, 'No, madam; nothing whatever. I left all the people very dull—not at all what they were when you were among them.'- Well, I did give them a rouse,' she said; and then mournfully added, but I suppose they have forgotten me?'- Why, the truth is, madam, ingratitude is the public's sin; nevertheless, you are still spoken of, and by a hopeful few are promised back again. The worst of it is, should you really return, I fear there will be unbelievers who, even to your face, will disown you.''Never mind that,' said Joanna; only let me get back again, and I warrant me I'll have the world by the nose once more. As for being disowned, why, for the matter of that, I'd take another name, and start a new mystery. Is there, at the present time, think you, room for such a novelty?'-'As I have said, madam, we have been somewhat dull in such matters of late. There has been no new prophet on the stage for some time.'-'Then the world wants one. Don't tell me, I know it: bless you, after a season, the world gets sick and tired of its old, old truths, and longing, hungering for a good lie, will swallow anything. Otherwise, do you think I should have gone down as I did? though even I made one great mistake-my lie was not quite strong enough.'- Pretty well, I think, madam. Not at all,' said Joanna; and then I gave it too short a date. Nevertheless, I did hook 'em,-folks of all degrees,-a good sprinkling of the high with the low-gentle and simple-rich and poor. Well, if there is any sport worthy of human enjoyment, it is cheating our fellow-creatures.""

"The old harridan !" we cried.

"Still give her the praise of an ingenuous tongue," said the Hermit. "Joanna only

practise, yet vehemently deny. The woman spoke in earnest, and that's something. And I fear me, she spoke truly of the world's hunger at intervals for imposition. It is, I suppose, with the multitude as sometimes with single Nokes or Styles: truth becomes to them monotonous

propriety dulness; and so they get a zest for a lie, and make holiday with extravagance. Nay, sir, if we look philosophically into the matter, the greater the outrage offered to their minds, the deeper, by consequence, their faith in it. A zany boasts his daily intercourse with angelic spirits: the daring of the falsehood carries away the imagination of weak and simple folks who clap hands with the impostor, that they may be nearer to his celestial intelligences. The spiritual mountebank, juggling with human hopes and fears, offers a closer knowledge of the mystery of mysteries. Hence, the dupe is often born of the zealot. Enough of this. Perhaps, some day Joanna will be again in the world though, as she says, under another name, and preaching forth another marvel. It has been thus almost since truth was born-and she came smiling from chaos upon the earth-and will be thus until the end."

We

"And the Turveytopians? What of their government-their laws, and customs?" "Of such matters know I nothing," said the Hermit, "save that the schoolmasters were, so to speak, the nobility of the people. scholars, spirited from the outside world to be brought up and taught in all things anew, were confined to the nursery, the school-room and play-grounds. Indeed, save that the benevolence of our masters was more remarkable than in the teachers of dancing-dogs, they seemed to look upon us as inferior creatures, that might, with time and pains, be taught some tricks of humanity-that possibly, from a sojourn in Turveytop, might be made less mischievous to one another when sent back to the world we were taken from. Hence, I saw but little of the political and social condition of Turveytop. There ran a legend that, many hundred years ago, there arose a civil war in the land, which was ended in a way it would be pleasant to see imitated."

"How, sir?" we asked.

Why, the two parties had armed themselves with swords and spears and battle-axes-things unknown till then-and guns and cannon, and all the devilry which laurels come of. Thus armed, the divided people took the field. The opposing chiefs had marked their ground, and every man rubbed his hands-for the Turveytopians were, for the time, frantic with malice

at the sweet thought of chopping his neighbour through the skull, whilst those birds of glory, the vultures, were already cock-a-whoop

for human flesh. Now, at that time the Turveytopians worshipped, among other divinities, a certain God of Laughter. I know not that such was his name; but mirth, loud, reckless, rollicking mirth, was his high attribute. This god had of late been much neglected. The Turveytopians having their hearts filled with rancour, and in the drunkenness of their wrath yearning for nought but blood and woundshad wickedly neglected the service of that beneficent Numen. Oh, glorious laughter!"-cried the sage of Belly fulle, falling back in his chair, and turning his broad shining face upwards, whilst his eyes twinkled benignly, and his lips seemed trembling with a jest "thou manloving spirit, that for a time dost take the burden from the weary back-that dost lay salve to the feet, bruised and cut by flints and shards-that takest blood-baking melancholy by the nose, and makest it grin despite itself that all the sorrows of the past, the doubts of the future, confoundest in the joy of the present-that makes man truly philosophic-conqueror of himself and care! What was talked of as the golden chain of Jove, was nothing but a succession of laughs, a chromatic scale of merriment, reaching from earth to Olympus. It is not true that Prometheus stole the fire, but the laughter of the gods, to deify our clay, and in the abundance of our merriment, to make us reasonable creatures. Have you ever considered, sir, what man would be, destitute of the ennobling faculty of laughter? Why, sir, laughter is to the face of man-what sinovia, I think anatomists call it, is to his joints,-it oils, and lubricates, and makes the human countenance divine. Without it, our faces would have been rigid, hyena-like; the iniquities of our heart, with no sweet antidote to work upon them, would have made the face of the best among us a horrid, husky thing, with two sullen, hungry, cruet lights at the top-for foreheads would have then gone out of fashion-and a cavernous hole below his nose. Think of a babe without laughter, as it is, its first intelligence! The creature shows the divinity of its origin and end, by smiling upon us: yes, smiles are its first talk with the world, smiles the first answers that it understands. And then, as worldly wisdom comes upon the little thing, it crows, it chuckles, it grins, and shaking in its nurse's arms, or in waggish humour playing bo-peep with the breast, it reveals its high destinydeclares, to him with ears to hear it, the heirdom of its immortality. Let materialists blaspheme as gingerly and as acutely as they will, they must find confusion in laughter. Man may take a triumphant stand upon his broad grins; for he looks around the world, and his innermost soul, sweetly tickled with the knowledge, tells him that he alone of all creatures laughs. Imagine, if you can, a laughing fish. Let man

then send a loud ha! ha! through the universe, and be reverently grateful for the privilege. "And the Turveytopians, you say, sir, had their God of Laughter?"

"And, from what I could gather, he held a most exalted place in their Pantheon. Sweet, too, especially sweet, was one of their customs of sacrifice. It was this. A man always dedicated his first joke, whatever it may have been, to the God of Laughter. There was a fine spirit of gratitude in the practice, a sweet acknowledgment of the honied uses of mirth in this our daily draught of life, otherwise cold, and flatulent, and bitter. This first offering was always a matter of great solemnity. The maker of the joke, whether man or maid, was taken in pompous procession to the shrine of the god. And there, the joke-beautifully worked in letters of gold upon some richcoloured silk or velvet-was given in to the flamen, who read it to the assembled people, who roared approving laughter. The joker was then taken back in triumph to his house, and feasting and sports for nine days marked this his first act of citizenship; for I should tell you that no jokeless man could claim any civil rights. Hence, when the man began to joke, he was considered fit for the gravest offices of human government; and not till then!"

"What! no civil rights? Had he no vote-if indeed there were votes in Turveytop-for his representative in the Senate ?-for-"

"Sir," replied the Hermit, gravely, "he had no voice in any thing; not even in the making of a beadle. The man without a joke in Turveytop was a wretch, an outcast; indeed, to give you the strongest, the truest comparison, he was what your man in England is, without a guinea." "And what

"Miserable wretch!" we cried. became of these creatures?"

"As I learned, the jokeless did all the foul and menial work. Miserable men, indeed! I have heard of a country in which the social dignity and moral intelligence of the man was computed by the soap he was wont to outlay upon his anatomy. He might be too poor to buy the soap; never mind that; it was a terrible thing, and stung the penniless offender like a nettle to call him the unwashed!' Now, in Turveytop, it amounted to the same degree of ignominy to call a man the jokeless! Some of these might be in tatters and starving; well, they would ask charity, and how? They would say nothing of rags and hunger, but stopping the rich, they would despairingly slap the forehead, and in a hollow voice, cryNo joke!' Thus, in those days of Turveytop, jokes gave dignity to the highest offices of the state. Senators and magistrates thought of nothing but making a joke of their functions and reputation. They had their great reward not only in the admi

ration of the people, but in the high degree of mental expression and physical beauty which their genius, constantly exercised, inevitably awarded them."

"Have jokes such benign power upon their makers?" we asked.

"Unquestionably," answered the Hermit, startled at the question. "Take a sulky fellow, with a brow ever wrinkled at the laughing hours, let them laugh ever so melodiously who looks with a death's head at the pleasant fruits of the earth heaped upon his tablewho leaves his house for business as an ogre leaves his cave for food-who returns home joyless and grim to his silent wife and creeping children,-take such a man, and, if possible, teach him to joke. Why, sir, 'twould be like turning a mandril into an Apollo. A hearty jest kills an ugly face. The divine nature of man irradiates and ennobles what at first sight seems wholly animal. What a mighty joker was Socrates! Yes, joker, sir; and rightly have the sculptors imagined that knotty countenance, sublimed and sweetened by the laughing spirit within! Now, the jokeless of Turvey top-as it was related to me-became physically forlorn; the sympathy of mind and flesh was so active. Hence, they were drudges, scavengers, bonegrubbers, pickers-up of old rags and iron, bearers of burdens, outcasts, miserable creatures;-the jokers all the while sitting high in place, their cheeks greasy with the marrow of the earth, their eyes twinkling with its nectar."

"Strange, indeed!" we cried.

Aye, sir," said the Hermit, "for there are places in which, nine times out of ten, your joker is the lean drudge, and the dull fellow has the pot-belly, the purple nose, and the full purse.'

"And now, sir, for the civil war in Turveytop? You say it was pleasantly ended ?"

"In this fashion," said the Hermit, "if I have heard the legend truly. The two armies, in high conceit with their murderous weaponsfor until that time there had been no menkilling engines known in Turveytop-lusted for the fight. Now, sir, you have heard or read of the vast concern shown by the gods of the heathen in the battles of their favourite soldiers-as if, for instance, you and I should have pet emmets in the bloody struggle for an ear of barley. Indeed, whether or no, man will make his gods shoulder the knapsack with him: he will make them enter the breach, fire the town, clap a ready hand upon moveables; knock a wayward householder on the head, and after, take enjoyment in the cellar, the larder, and the chamber. Man will, as I say, take his gods campaigning with him; and, sir, it must be owned, scurvy treatment they ofttimes meet with at his hands. When he has laboured profitably in the bloody harvest, he gives them money for their good

will and support; and, alas, poor gods! with swaggering, blaspheming impudence, thanks them for his good fortune in robbery and slaughter. To hear of certain thanksgivings for successful battle, should we not believe that the devil had made his Adam, and that the slaughtered creatures were children of the demon handiwork, begotten by the evil principle, to be zealously attacked and butchered by the progeny of him who walked and talked with God in Paradise? It would seem thus; but it is not so. No, we are children of one Father, and when we have killed some thousand brethren or so, why with unwashed hands and demure faces, we thank God for his good help in the fratricide. In the outside world of brazen brows, there is no impudence like the impudence of what men call religion."

"Still, sir," we urged, "you wander from the battle of Turvey top.'

"Right: to wander is a besetting sin of mine. Keep we now to the story. Well, sir, the two armies were about to fight, when the God of Joking-whose shrine had been sadly despised and neglected in preparation for the war-resolved to put an end to the wickedness, and so to bring the Turveytopians back again to jests and reason. Whereupon, as the story runs, the God Jocus repaired to a high hill near the battle-field, and seating himself cross-legged on its summit, called his thousands of servants about him, giving them due orders for their goodly work. The god surveyed the hosts below him with a wan smile, and then clapping his hands to his sides, he laughed a laugh of thunder. On this, the trumpets brayed once, and once only, and the armies engaged. In a moment the god saw that his sprites-there were immortal thousands, though born of human brains-had done his wise behest. There was no smoke-no fire. The great guns were dumb

the muskets undischarged; for be it known to you, sir, that the Turveytopians had at the time all the weapons since invented in our miniature world. Then you might have seen the soldiers charge, and their brittle bayonets break harmless against the bellies of the foes: then would some seize their weapons, and with the butt-end strike the enemy in the teeth. And the enemy stood and licked their lips. Wherefore, you will ask? I will tell you. The musketstock was no longer walnut-wood; but, by the benignity of the great God Jocus, a thing of savoury sausage-meat, calling up the spirit of enjoyment in the heart of man, as it smote his nostril. In this way, sir, all things were changed. Here you would see a soldier take a cartridge from his box, and with bloody and sepulchral looks bite the cartridge-end. At that moment the face changed to sweetness and content; for, the cartridge bitten, a delicious cordial flowed into the mouth of the

biter, and winding about his stony heart, melted it into human jelly. Here you would see a grenadier sucking a bayonet, as a nursling sucks a lollipop; and wherefore?-The great God Jocus had turned the deadly weapon into sugarcandy. In another place you might behold the small drums turned into pots of jelly, and the little drummer-boys eating therefrom, and painting their downy faces with raspberry and currant of more than martial red. Big drums took the shape and flavour of rounds of beef; and in a thought, the kettles were buffaloes' dried humps. The pioneers' caps became wine-coolers, and their aprons napkins of damask. Greyheaded officers swallowed their own swords, turned into macarone. A cymbal player was seen to devour his cymbals, suddenly changed into ratafia paste. What had been gunpowder was eaten by the handful as small saccharine comfits; cartridge-bullets were candied plums, and gave great pleasure both to horse and foot. Well, sir, it is not to be thought that discipline could survive temptation such as this. No, sir: at first there was vast astonishment; then a low murmur of delight ran through either host; then there was a mighty smacking of lips; and then the opposing armies laughed a tremendous laugh, and embraced. On this a solemn cachinnation escaped the great God Jocus, who, uncrossing his legs, vanished. The news flew among the women of Turveytop, who, coming and bringing their children to the field, made. merry with the army. A banquet was resolved upon; it was but rightful thanksgiving to the benevolent Jocus, whose noble practical jest

had saved the blood of Turveytop; and more, had provided, yea, in the very engines of war, the wherewithal to comfort the bowels and rejoice the heart of man. The substance of dried meats was found in gun carriages; delicious cheeses were in the wheels; and pikes and halberds were nought more deadly than attenuated sausage, pungent and aromatic. The great guns, too-charged as it was thought with agony and death for thousands-contained nothing more mischievous than ruby wine. The cannon shot, turned to corks, were now withdrawn; and the armies ate and drank, and laughed and sang, and danced, and gave hearty thanks to the great God Jocus."

"And so the matter ended ?"

"Even so, sir," replied the Hermit; "the field whereon the armies met was called, from that time, the Field of the Sage and Onions, those vegetables from that very day abounding there. And in memory of the time, the Turveytopians, in solemn procession, once a year gather of the produce to stuff their geese. You smile, sir. Think you, sir, it is not better to pull an onion than to pluck laurel? There are fewer tears drawn by homely scallion than by the green leaf."

"A strange freak, sir," we said, "of the God Jocus! It was at that we smiled."

"A strange, yet mighty benevolence!" cried the Hermit. "Would that he-or some kindred beneficence-could descend upon carnivorous war, when and wheresoever it should purpose to feed, and turn its carving sword to sugar!"

ONCE thou wast what thou art not now,

The beauty of May morning;

Soon as the sunbeam lit thy bough
With smiles of early dawning,
Children came to gather posies,
The bee to sip thy flower,
When as yet no summer roses
Adorn'd the cottage bower.
Then didst thou rule in queenly pride,
Pale but peerless hawthorn tree,
And ev'ry scented breeze that sigh'd
Told the love it bore for thee.
The small bird came, a yearly guest,
To thy impervious screen,
In which the schoolboy left her nest
And the sky-blue eggs unseen.
The violet dark and cowslip fair

'Neath thy shade were ever found,

Where the fluttering noon-tide air
Sent the dew-drops pattering round.
At eve fond lovers oft would meet,
Ling'ring 'neath thee until night;
When glow-worms kindling at their feet
Warn'd them of their homeward flight.—
But never more beneath thy shade
Shall the village maiden rest,
For darkly are thine arms array'd
'Gainst the sun-light of the west.
And they are leafless, sad, and drear-
And the coming of sweet May
Will cause no blossoms to appear,
Cluster'd on a wither'd spray.

It matters not-remembrance will
Paint thee as thou once hast been,
And the old thorn upon the hill
Yet in mem❜ry shall be green.

G. PERRY.