spondence on the other. Why should I cumber myself with the poor fact that the receiver is not capacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining, and, no longer a mate for frogs and worms, dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean. is thought a disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited. True love transcends instantly the unworthy object and dwells and broods on the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but feels rid of so much earth and feels its independency the surer. Yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may deify both. THE COURTIN'. BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL. [1819-1891.] ZEKLE crep' up, quite unbeknown, Agin' the chimbly crooknecks hung, The old queen's arm thet Gran'ther Young The wannut logs shot sparkles out The very room, coz she was in, Looked warm frum floor to ceilin', An' she looked full ez rosy agin TEN THOUSAND A YEAR. BY SAMUEL WARREN. [SAMUEL WArren: An English novelist; born in Denbighshire, Wales, May 23, 1807. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, but abandoned it for law. Ultimately he became queen's counsel, recorder at Hull, and a member of Parliament. He is chiefly remembered for his "Passages from the Diary of a Late Physician" (1832) and "Ten Thousand a Year" (1841), both of which appeared originally in Blackwood's Magazine. He died in 1877, in London.] THE HERO APPEARS ON THE SCENE. ABOUT ten o'clock one Sunday morning, in the month of July, 1839, the dazzling sunbeams, which had for several hours irradiated a little dismal back attic in one of the closest courts adjoining Oxford Street, in London, and stimulated with their intensity the closed eyelids of a young man-one TITTLEBAT TITMOUSE- lying in bed, at length woke him. He rubbed his eyes for some time, to relieve himself from the irritation occasioned by the sudden glare they encountered; and yawned and stretched his limbs with a heavy sense of weariness, as though his sleep had not refreshed him. He presently cast his eyes towards the heap of clothes lying huddled together on the backless chair by the bedside, where he had hastily flung them about an hour after midnight; at which time he had returned from a great draper's shop in Oxford Street, where he served as a shopman, and where he had nearly dropped asleep, after a long day's work, in the act of putting up the shutters. He could hardly keep his eyes open while he undressed, short as was the time required to do so; and on dropping exhausted into bed, there he had continued, in deep unbroken slumber, till the moment of his being presented to the reader. He lay for several minutes, stretching, yawning, and sighing, occasionally casting an irresolute glance towards the tiny fireplace, where lay a modicum of wood and coal, with a tinder box and a match or two placed upon the hob, so that he could easily light his fire for the purposes of shaving and breakfasting. He stepped at length lazily out of bed, and when he felt his feet, again yawned and stretched himself. Then he lit his fire, placed his bit of a kettle on the top of it, and returned to bed, where he lay with his eye fixed on the fire, watching the crac kling blaze insinuate itself through the wood and coal. Once, however, it began to fail, so he had to get up and assist it, by blowing, and bits of paper; and it seemed in so precarious a state that he determined not again to lie down, but sit on the bedside as he did, with his arms folded, ready to resume operations if necessary. In this posture he remained for some time, watching his little fire, and listlessly listening to the discordant jangling of innumerable church bells, clamorously calling the citizens to their devotions. The current of thoughts passing through his mind, was something like the following: "Heigho!-Lud, Lud! - Dull as ditch water! - This is my only holiday, yet I don't seem to enjoy it! for I feel knocked up with my week's work! (A yawn.) week's work! (A yawn.) What a life mine is, to be sure! Here I am, in my eight-and-twentieth year, and for four long years have been one of the shopmen at Tag-rag & Co.'s, slaving from half-past seven o'clock in the morning till nine at night, and all for a salary of thirty-five pounds a year, and my board! And Mr. Tag-rag-eugh! what a beast! — is always telling me how high he's raised my salary!! Thirty-five pounds a year is all I have for lodging, and turning out like a gentleman! 'Pon my soul! it can't last; for sometimes I feel getting desperate such strange thoughts come into my mind!-Seven shillings a week do I pay for this cursed hole- (he uttered these words with a bitter emphasis, accompanied by a disgustful look round the little room) that one couldn't swing a cat in without touching the four sides! Last winter three of our gents (i.e. his fellow-shopmen) came to tea with me one Sunday night; and bitter cold as it was, we four made this cussed doghole so hot, we were obliged to open the window! And as for accommodation I recollect I had to borrow two nasty chairs from the people below, who on the next Sunday borrowed my only decanter, in return, and, hang them, cracked it! Curse me, say I, if this life is worth having! It's all the very vanity of vanities as it's said somewhere in the Bible-and no mistake! Fag, fag, fag, all one's days, and what for? Thirtyfive pounds a year, and no advance!' (Here occurred a pause and reverie, from which he was roused by the clangor of the church bells.) Bah, bells! ring away till you're all cracked! Now do you think I'm going to be mewed up in church on this the only day out of the seven I've got to sweeten myself in, and sniff fresh air? A precious joke that would be! (A yawn.) Whew!-after all, I'd almost as lieve sit here; for what's the use of my going out? Everybody I see out is happy, excepting me, and the poor chaps that are like me! Everybody laughs when they see me, and know that I'm only a tallow-faced counterjumper - I know that's the odious name we gents go by! for whom it's no use to go out for one day in seven can't give one a bloom! Oh, Lord! what's the use of being good-looking, as some chaps say I am?"- Here he instinctively passed his left hand through a profusion of sandy-colored hair, and cast an eye towards the bit of fractured looking-glass which hung against the wall, and had, by faithfully representing to him a by no means ugly set of features (despite the dismal hue of his hair) whenever he chose to appeal to it, afforded him more enjoyment than any other object in the world, for years. "Ah, by Jove! many and many's the fine gal I've done my best to attract the notice of, while I was serving her in the shop- that is, when I've seen her get out of a carriage! There has been luck to many a chap like me, in the same line of speculation: look at Tom Tarnish-how did he get Miss Twang, the rich pianoforte maker's daughter?—and now he's cut the shop, and lives at Hackney, like a regular gentleman! Ah! that was a stroke! But somehow it hasn't answered with me yet; the gals don't take! How I have set my eyes to be sure, and ogled them! All of them don't seem to dislike the thing and sometimes they'll smile, in a sort of way that says I'm safe-but it's been no use yet, not a bit of it! - My eyes! catch me, by the way, ever nodding again to a lady on the Sunday, that had smiled when I stared at her while serving her in the shopafter what happened to me a month or two ago in the Park! Didn't I feel like damaged goods, just then? But it's no matter, women are so different at different times! Very likely I mismanaged the thing. By the way, what a precious puppy of a chap the fellow was that came up to her at the time she stepped out of her carriage to walk a bit! As for good looks-cut me to ribbons (another glance at the glass) - no; I a'n't afraid there, neither-but-heigho! I suppose he was, as they say, born with a golden spoon in his mouth, and had never so many a thousand a year, to make up to him for never so few brains! He was uncommon well-dressed, though, I must own. What trousers! - they stuck so natural to him, he might have been born in them. And his waistcoat, and |