As far as we can see, teetotalism has had but one poet and we miss him here. Under no hands can abstaining from intoxicating liquors have a wholly ideal treatment; but the ideal and the real have at any rate once been brought side by side, in the advocacy of this, which is essentially the cause, the regeneration, with its champions. The topics and the line of argument of this chef d'œuvre are precisely those of the temperance literature before us. Our readers shall judge how far the moderns fall short in airy grace and play of fancy, as well as grasp of their subject, in comparison with the author of the inaugural ode sung at the great cold water celebration held at Boston, U.S., thirty years ago

ODE.

"In Eden's green retreats
A water brook that played
Between soft mossy seats
Beneath a plane-tree's shade,
Whose rustling leaves
Danced o'er its brink,
Was Adam's drink
And also Eve's.

Beside the parent spring
Of that young brook, the pair
Their morning chant would sing,
And Eve, to dress her hair,

Are not good wells
And crystal springs
The very things
For our hotels?"

Seriously speaking it is difficult to believe that the concluding clencher to the argument could be written in grave earnest by so neat a versifier; but a study of the dozen temperance hymn-books and melodists before us satisfies us that the thing is possible. Teetotalism is of the nature of a hobby a state in which the mind is insensible and dead to the absurd.

With regard to the body of verse from which we have selected, it is superfluous to adduce it as testimony to the doctrine that the religion of the multitude is always a vulgar religion. It is like telling the cabman he is no gentleman. And no one can hear the excitement of these wild services parodied by street boys, or Hallelujahs hummed by them at their rough play, without a serious alarm for the consequences of making sacred things thus common and profane. But one redeeming point we note in all these collections. Whatever is distinctivę is, indeed, vulgar and boisterous, and, from mere coarseness of perception, if from no worse alloy, irreverent. But mingled with these effusions are uniformly many of the best hymns in our language, and often tender and graceful modern compositions, in startling discrepancy with the prevailing tone. All we can say is, if a penitent prizefighter or reformed drunkard, in his mo-ments of contrition can be brought to. understand and estimate them at their true worth, a work has been effected which cannot be regarded as other than a good one..

ARTIFICIAL birds' nests are now being manufactured in Switzerland, under the direction of the society formed there for the protection of insectivorous birds. The Yverdum Society

FOURTH SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. V.

has placed such nests in the public walks and communal forests, on the borders of lawns, &c.,. and found them all occupied by hedge-sparrows, redstarts, creepers, and tomtits..

106.

It is now just seven weeks (for we came upon her on Thursday, the 4th of September), since Mrs. Ferrier had seen Eva quit her house, in company with Mr. and Mrs. Dowlas. That Miss March acknowledged the claims of the kindred Mrs. Ferrier had found for her, that lady had been made aware. She knew that Eva had gone with them to Llynbwllyn, and she hoped that all the danger of a marriage with Richard had utterly passed away. She hoped so; but she felt no comfortable assurance of it. She had on her side the solemn promise which Eva had asked and obtained from Richard; but she could not feel certain that her son would keep his promise. It was not to his mother, but to Eva that he had given his word. Miss March might feel she had a right to release him from such a promise; and, as Mrs. Ferrier bitterly reflected, she would be quick enough in claiming and exercising the right. If so, what had the mother of Richard gained by the remorseless ingenuity with which she had laid bare (as she supposed) the actual secret of Eva's origin? She had made the disgrace, which might have remained a conjectural matter, a thing open and certain before the eyes of all the world.

Therefore, it will be understood that Mrs. Ferrier's grand contrivances had not made her a very much happier woman. Even the presence of Richard was no such happiness to her as before. For Richard was now at Leamington again. He had left his friend Maxwell convalescent in Scotland, and had accepted a shooting invitation in Warwickshire; for Captain Ferrier was one whom all were proud of knowing and entertaining. Though many of his days were just now spent in his friend's fields, yet his head-quarters were at his mother's house. And as this particular day, the 4th of the month, was very wet, he was at home the greater part of it.

He was, as you know, already aware that

his mother's great discovery, well as facts appeared to sustain it, had proved a fiction after all; and he was very glad thereat. But he resolved that to his mother no hint of the counter-discovery should at present be breathed. If she continued as hostile to the marriage as before, the news would be likely to set her inquiring and intriguing a second time. If she were coming to view the matter more calmly, it would be very unwise to unsettle her by any new stimulus to curiosity and anxiety. So, for aught Mrs. Ferrier yet knew, the dreaded Eva was living, as Miss Roberts, along with the Rector of Llynbwllyn. Where, at this time, our heroine really was, we shall know as soon as it behoves us. Suffice it now to say, that it was in a place hitherto unknown both to ourselves and to her.

Mrs. Ferrier and the Captain had just breakfasted. Conversation had not flowed freely between them. There were many matters on which they thought and felt in unison, as of old. But on the subject which, to them both, was the greatest, they were as divided in heart as it is possible for any two persons to be.

This morning the postman's knock was welcomed by Mrs. Ferrier with more of interest than usual. She was awaiting an answer to a letter she had written on the Tuesday. Not daring to ask Richard how matters now stood between himself and Miss Roberts, she had taken a somewhat circuitous way of ascertaining. She had written to Mrs. Dowlas a few inquiries as to Eva, which would elicit information as to any prospects which might be vaunted by that aspiring young lady. Of the three relations whom the too rapid imagination of Mrs. Ferrier had bestowed on Eva, Mrs. Dowlas was surely the one least likely to make her niece's interests her own. Ferrier had seen enough to be sure of that. To Mrs. Dowlas, therefore, had she penned the following inquiries :

Mrs.

'Leamington, September 2, 1856. MADAM, Though, perhaps, I am scarcely entitled to call myself a friend of your niece, Miss Eva Roberts, yet, as you are doubtless aware, her deceased friend and protector was a near and dear relation of my own. Therefore I cannot but be somewhat interested in her. If it would not be regarded as too great a liberty, and would not trouble you too much, I should be greatly pleased to hear of her going on well. It would give me satisfaction to hear that she is settled and comfortable in her new and proper position; that she wins the

To the above letter there came on Thursday the following reply, Mrs. Ferrier and Richard having breakfasted, as we just now said:

:

"You

almost flung this letter into his face. have been ready to quarrel with your mother because she would not accept Miss March for an angel. Now then! Just look what her own friends have to say of her!"

Of course Mrs. Ferrier could have no idea of the terrible disappointment Mrs. Dowlas had had, nor of the consequent enmity against her supposed niece. And the fearful and complex charges which this letter contained all sank into the mind of Mrs. Ferrier like water flowing into a dry sponge.

66

1856.

"RESPECTABLE MADAM, I think it only right that I should answer your very civil and proper letter of inquiry about Miss Roberts, my niece; although it is a disgraceful and disgusting duty to me to mention her very name. What I have to tell of her is everything which is bad, and nothing which is good. After disgracing us all by goings-on the most shameful you ever heard, she has robbed us of I do not know how much property, and run away from us altogether. And a good riddance, I must say, she is. Every day that comes brings me some fresh story of her wickedness, known to all the neighbourhood as well as to myself. I hear and I know it to be true, that she took with a tall Irish fellow, of up the name of M'Quantigan, who goes about the country lecturing at meetings; and I know that the young lady - my niece I should be ashamed to call her was more than once seen walking with him at night, and going on in a way which, as the moral mother of four young children, I do not think proper to repeat. The dreadful example she was in the house, and the way in which she set herself to corrupt my husband himself. who was deceived by her false tongue, this is a thing which my pen refuses to utter. Where she is now I do not know. Where she ought to be, I should be very sorry to say. And so, respectable madam, I beg you to excuse my writing anything more on this so detestable and disreputable

a creature.

"I remain,

"Your's truly obedient,

"JANE DOWLAS."

Richard carelessly took the letter in hand; read the first words which met his eye; then crunched the paper up, and flung it away contemptuously into the fireplace.

"A piece of slanderous ribaldry! It is just as well for the disgusting writer of it that she is a woman, and not a man!"

"It's all very well, Richard, for you to throw my letters into the fire-place; that is very easily done. But it's quite another thing to explain away the truth."

"The truth! Why, mother, can you pretend to see anything but falsehood gross, malicious, falsehood, in a piece of trash like that?"

46

Oh, really! Then I may gather from that, that you think your mother a story-teller! Say what you think, by all meanssay that I wrote it all out of my own head! Any possible thing is more likely than that there should be any fault in the angelic Miss March-I beg her pardon sincerely,Miss Roberts."

"I will say this, mother that you are making me think you very different from what I always did think you. I should indeed have said, a little while ago, that the implacable spirit you show was, in you, the least possible of all things."

Poor Mrs. Ferrier burst into bitter tears. "Oh, I know it very well! I'm but too well aware how little you think of me; what a poor insignificant creature I am! So I must make up my mind to see you ruin yourself, after all!"

"You will see the matter in a very dif ferent light by-and-by, mother. And, if I ask you to be more guarded in what you

shake my determination that you never can do but because the more you say. now, the more you will have to regret byand-by."