Wedgewood loved money, he loved self-indulgence more, nor did he stint himself in his comforts. It was not then so much a positive parsimony that characterized him; it was an execrable coldness, not to say deadness, of heart to all around him.

A poor, miserable being is he who can find no object in this wide world for his affections to repose upon! Why, if it be but a bird to cherish and attend-a shrub, a flower to cultivate and to love, to rejoice when its verdant veins are full of sap, and its tender leaflets expand and flourish, and to pluck them off with a feeling of regret when they are sere, and dry, and withered-these are better than nothing; but Wedgewood seemed to love nothing. Children he professed to hate, dogs and cats to despise. What men could want with those execrable pets was to him a mystery; he never was so weak as to make a pet of anything. At length Wedgewood realized a very large sum of money; and he gloated over his balance-sheet and reviewed his annual income with a gladness which it is a pity such men should ever feel, but which soon fades away when it has nothing but gold for its object.

We have said that parsimony was not the characteristic of Josiah Wedgewood. He was indeed penurious enough as far as any liberal or benevolent plans or purposes were concerned, and he deeply loved accumulation, yet he had at least the common sense to love his comfort more than mere aggrandisement.

It is not often, indeed, that a selfish man can break off his long-contracted habits of accumulation. Such people generally find a pleasure in that very habit, and go on groping wealth together to the end of their days; but Wedgewood knew better than this, and an irrepressible desire to place what he had got out of the reach of contingency, as well as the hope of personal enjoyment, made him resolve to retire from business. We say there was some sense and some spirit in this. But even in this matter Wedgewood's distinctive disposition tinged his conduct. It was not so much that he was satisfied with what he had got-not so much the conviction that he had enough-as the desire above alluded to of placing what he had beyond the danger of loss, the fluctuation and uncertainty of mercantile affairs. So he gave over grasping and took to griping; by which we mean that he did not extend his bony fingers for more, but closed his iron hand firmly upon what he had. And as a common and natural consequence of his ceasing to acquire, he became more unwilling than ever to expend.

Then, with what cold-hearted indifference did he part with old and faithful servants-persons who had helped him to acquire his vast wealth-parties with whom an amiable man, nay, a man of ordinary sensibility and good feeling, must have parted with much regret! But when Wedgewood locked the office for ever, saw the warehouse closed for the last time, he witnessed the departure of his servants with the most perfect indifference. The scantysalaried clerk, who had grown grey in his service; the pale-faced lad, who had lost his little stock of health in that unwholesome office, and who was to return to his poor parents to decline and die; the decrepit and crippled porter, who had been cheap on account of his infirmities, though they doubled the amount of his labour; these were all sent adrift without a pang of regret, a word of encouragement, a smile, or a present. To be sure, he punctually paid them their wages, and had ever done so, and what more could they expect? He subtracted the amount of the broken window from the lad's salary, and he mulcted the porter for the packet he had lost; but then it was their own fault, they had been so careless. His servants had never received a word of approval from his lips. With all his worldly wisdom, Wedgewood had never calculated the advantage of a little kindness; of course they were the obliged parties by his employing them, and what could they expect beyond their due? The world was well enough satisfied with all this. It was generally known that Josiah Wedgewood always paid his servants their due on the day that it became so, and therefore, as things went, he was an excellent master.

Out of business, Wedgewood became restless and dissatisfied. He had no resources in himself: he had culti vated no tastes, he had acquired no relish for the amusements of life, and it was too late to begin now. Business was the element in which he had lived, and out of business he was like a fish out of its element. He coul command all the elegancies of life, but he could not command a taste and a desire for them. He could command all the luxuries of life, but with the exception of such as contributed to his mere animal enjoyment, he had ne relish even for the luxuries which were within his reach. Wedgewood had been a man of business, a mere man of business, from his youth upwards; he had indeed been brought up by parents well to do in the world, but they had taught him nothing but the main chance, to pursue nothing but what they profanely called the one thing needful.' Thus utterly restless and comfortless, a pre to languor and lassitude, discontented and dissatisfied with house and home, he found that he wanted something, and, by comparing himself with other men, be concluded that something was a wife. Selfishness had hitherto kept him from marrying, for he had looked alone at probable care, anxiety, and expenditure; his heart had never yearned for the tender joys of family affection. Selfishness, then, had hitherto kept him single; the same thing now urged him to matrimony. It was not that he fell a victim to the weakness of love, such a thing was utterly beneath so firm a man as Josiah Wedgewood. No, he wanted something to make his house less lonely, his walks less solitary; something to speak to when he was disposed to talk, and to sit quiet when he was inclined for silence; something to save him the trouble of carving, to scold his servants, purchase his provisions. and attend to his domestic affairs-that's what he wanted with a wife.

Resolved to marry, Josiah, as men of his character generally do, made a very unwise choice. He fixed upon a young, pretty, good-tempered woman, but one without any steadiness of mind, any habits of domestic management, any congeniality of disposition with himself. Singularly enough, he was not a little influenced in his choice by her personal attractions. Not that he cared anything about beauty; but since he was going to have a wife at any rate, something that was to be his, he would have that something a superior article. He did not choose his wife as a help meet for him but as a convenience, and he would have her to possess a charm which among men in general is prized. Such men as Wedgewood deserve to make unhappy matches, and they almost invariably do so. We wish them all the happiness they deserve.

As to the bride elect, she accepted his proposal simply for the sake of those red and black printed vouchers which represented the very large sums standing in the books a the Bank of England in the name of Wedgewood. Mrs Wedgewood was by no means a vicious or unprincipled woman. She was what the world calls quite correct in her life and deportment; but she was vain, frivolous, and inconsiderate, fond of dress and display, addicted to what is expressively called 'gadding about,' and sadly destitute of those fireside graces which are a woman's brightest ornaments. Above all, as she had little regard for her husband, she had little confidence in him, and no sympathy with him. Like most women of her class, she was ford of secrets; she had secrets with her servants, secrets with her neighbours, secrets with her friends, her family-with her husband none; her secrets were all from him not with him. Disgusted with his economical habits, fond of dress and display, she continually endeavoured to obtain money from him under false pretences.' Moreover, she kept him in an atmosphere, as it were, of petty mystery; indulged in paltry subterfuges and contemptible deception, and that about the most trivial matters. Even when she had nothing to conceal, she chafed and vexed him by an air of concealment. She was very fond of reading romances, and she endeavoured to make her domestic existence a romance of real life' by throwing around it a false and foclish air of mystery.

And now an event occurred which might have cemented the affections of this ill-matched pair, if they had entertained any affection for one another. This event was the birth of a son, an object for them both to love, and which it might be hoped would have made them love one another; but it was not so. Mrs Wedgewood was not indeed the cold-hearted churlish being her husband was; on the contrary, she was peculiarly susceptible to kindly feelings, had they been drawn out and reciprocated, and she loved her little son with all a mother's intensity. Wedgewood, too, at length was moved and melted, the fountain of his frozen affections was thawed, and they gushed forth as it were in a torrent of tenderness upon his infant son. He became foolishly fond of this the child of his old age, and as it proved an only child, who was well-nigh spoiled by the injudicious conduct of his parents. Yet, with all this, the son was so far from being a pledge of affection between them as to become rather a bone of contention-a cause of quarrel; and each was absurdly jealous of the child's affection for the other.

Still there was the old leaven of selfishness even in Wedgewood's love for his little son. It was evident that, much as he loved him, he loved himself still better. While yet an infant, the father could not endure a squalling child, and he must be removed to a remote part of the house. He would fondle, and dandle, and sport with the youngster when he was in the humour, but he never endured a night of broken rest, nor put down the newspaper to play with the boy if he was reading an interesting article. Nay, when one of those complaints to which children are liable attacked him, and the little fellow lay day after day and night after night upon his anxious mother's knees, the father, though really distressed, had his own chamber changed lest his rest should be broken. Another effect of Wedgewood's love for his son was the perfect concentration of his affection upon that one object. The ordinary consequence of such a breaking up of the stern stoicism of a selfish man as that we have described, is a partial expansion at least of his soul's affections. Love is like the light of the sun, which does not shine the less on each because it has an infinity of objects to shine upon; or it ought to be and generally is so, but it was not so in the case before us. Whatever little feeling Wedgewood might have evinced before towards his fellow-creatures seemed now entirely absorbed and lost in his love for that one object. His son, indeed, was intensely dear to him, else cared he nothing for the sons of Adam. Chafed, too, by the injudicious and vexatious conduct of his wife, he became morose and sullen.

It must be admitted that he was in some degree to be pitied for the exacerbation of his temper at the hands of his wife; but why did he marry such a woman? or, having married, why did he not act wisely and affectionately towards her? For when a woman has a heart, there is a hold to be obtained of those exquisite feminine feelings of hers, which may lead her out of the paths of folly into the ways of wisdom; and Mrs Wedgewood, frivolous and foolish as she might be, was anything but heartless. Under her present treatment, however, she degenerated. From romances she took to reading plays; and the grand point with your old dramatists, your baleful and pernicious scribblers of comedies, was to make merry with an old husband, duped and dishonoured by a young wife. Well, she was a young wife with an old husband; and she adopted the tone of some of these paltry heroines who figure in the productions we have named. The woman was vain not vicious. There was no immorality in her conduct, but she affected an air of intrigue and mystery. The little paltry deceptions in which she indulged, and to which we have already alluded-matters connected with the mere trivialities of dress and household expense-gave rise to many a petty intrigue and equivoque, which to her vitiated taste were quite dramatic. This utter want of confidence between the couple-this evident mystery of manner on the part of the lady-this detection of idle and absurd subterfuges-the conviction of petty and ridiculous deceit at length rendered Wedgewood suspicious, and

suspicion soon degenerated into jealousy. Thus did this indiscreet and frivolous woman create for herself and her husband the elements of unhappiness in mere whim and idle fitfulness.

The child, meanwhile, grew and flourished; it was indeed a beautiful child, and its father was proportionately fond of it. So far, however, as we have hinted, from being a bond of union between its parents, it was too often a cause of discord. They both loved their child, but both treated it improperly; and their various modes of treatment formed the subject of endless dispute. Thus, when the boy was about five or six years old, he became sensible of the spirit of his parents, and made that discovery so disastrous to a child's welfare, that each of its parents was a refuge from the displeasure of the other.

Wedgewood seemed to get daily more morose, selfish, and hard-hearted, and decaying health did not of course make him better in mental condition. Urged by his increasing infirmities, he sought the best medical advice, and was sent to the sea-side to try salt water bathing; for this purpose he went to Brighton.

Brighton! What a place for the display of Mrs Wedgewood's love of finery and gaiety. By the end of a week, the lady pronounced Brighton to be quite a heaven; the gentleman designated it as a region the very reverse. The seeds of suspicion which had been sown in the breast of Wedgewood now grew and flourished. Young and pretty, fond of admiration, open to flattery, and utterly tired of the company of the querulous invalid, the conduct of Mrs Wedgewood betrayed a levity and thoughtlessness which nourished the growing sentiment in his bosom, and from petty bickering and trivial disagreement, the ill-conditioned pair broke out into open quarrel and acrimonious dispute. As there are always an odious set of people who encourage such matters for the fun of the thing,' and a detestable knot of gossippers who disseminate and exaggerate reports, things went on so badly that, but for the interference of an aunt of Mrs Wedgewood, they would soon have come to the disastrous length of a separation.

Mrs Manners, though somewhat of a busy-body, and a gossiping, meddling old lady, was in the main a kind-hearted person, and not by any means deficient in common sense, a thing which often goes farther than uncommon genius. This she displayed in her interference and advice. She acted the part of peacemaker with tolerable success, and seeing that a fashionable wateringplace was by no means an eligible situation for a testy, touchy invalid, who was a little disposed to be jealous of his giddy young wife, she recommended their removal to a quiet retired village on the sea-coast at which she resided, and where there was at this very time a pretty detached residence to let not many minutes' walk from her own.

Wedgewood took this advice, and the house was taken for him, to which he immediately removed. A more important piece of advice was also tendered, and, singularly enough, was taken too. This was, that the child should be sent to a preparatory school for some months at least. On this occasion Wedgewood displayed the only act of self-denial with which we are acquainted. He positively consented to the pain of parting with his son; but then it was exclusively for the purpose of plaguing his wife; and it is thought by those who knew him best that he would never have given his consent had not his wife been so clamorous against it. Howbeit, the child was sent to a preparatory school when his parents removed to Sandibay. At first the novelty of their abode charmed Mrs Wedgewood amazingly. The walks, though solitary, were pleasant; the rides, though dull, were not dusty; the sea-bathing was delightful; the garden beautiful; and the vicinity of her aunt's house charming.

For a full fortnight everything went on smoothly. Wedgewood having entirely his own way, could find fault with nothing in particular; and with the exception of a little bickering at meal times, which, by the bye, were the only times of meeting, the house was pretty peaceable.

But a fortnight had scarcely elapsed when the lady began to tire of everything. The walks were solitary and not pleasant, the rides were dull and dusty too, sea-bathing had lost its charms, and a garden was an insipid thing to be always looking at. Mrs Wedgewood began to sigh for that love of a London or that darling of a Brighton; her aunt's conversation grew tiresome in the extreme, and she longed for dress, display, fashion, and excitement. It must be confessed, too, that Wedgewood found himself much less happy than he had anticipated. A man of his stamp is by no means well fitted for a rural life. With out internal resources, without a relish for quiet rational amusements, without a natural love or an acquired taste for the beauties of creation, he soon came to confess that it was very tiresome to see the tide, eternally going out or coming in, wish-wash under the windows all day long. Wedgewood, however, dragged on some months at the seaside-firstly, because it annoyed his wife; and, secondly, because it was extremely beneficial to his health. He became, indeed, quite convalescent, but he longed for his quiet pint of port at the snug tavern over the newspapers; his stroll about the streets of London, where nobody knew him, and which he perambulated with his arm behind his back, partly from the habits of old gentlemen, and partly for the protection of his pocket-handkerchief. He missed the ducks in the park, and the swans in the Serpentine, and the soldiers at St James'-all which, as he could see them for nothing, he made a point of seeing. Indeed, this was a principle of his; he cared nothing for pictures, yet he often dawdled about the national gallery; he cared nothing for natural curiosities, yet he frequently meandered about the British Museum. As to this latter place, so anxious was he to have all that he could have for nothing, that he procured a ticket for the reading-rooms, and often went to sleep there with a book in his hand.

Equally tired, then, of Sandibay, equally anxious to go to London, and have the child at home, Mr and Mrs Wedgewood were for once agreed, and they went home. The lady at least was delighted. She entered with new zest into all the gaities which she could command, and her life became an endless opposition to her husband's will-an endless alternation of open dispute and covert intrigue to obtain the means and opportunities of indulgence. Of course, Wedgewood was to a certain extent to be commiserated, but he had brought much of this misery upon himself by his churlish, morose, and bearish disposition. It may readily be supposed that under this course of moral discipline his temper did not improve, and he went about like many another dullard, railing against matrimony as an unmixed evil. Mrs Wedgewood was just one of those indiscreet and facile women who are nuch to be blamed and much to be pitied, but who may be much improved by kind, and firm, and reasonable treatment. Under the treatment that she experienced she daily became worse, not indeed to the extent, as we have said, of any gross immorality, but to an utter indifference to her husband's comfort. Somewhat perverting the words of the philosopher, we may say she was never less at home than when at home. An open rupture at length took place, and notwithstanding Mrs Manners' forcible epistolary expostulation, the vain and silly woman found, when it was too late, that she had brought upon herself the odium, which to a woman it always is, of a separation. She shed many bitter tears, she made many ardent supplications, but Wedgewood was inexorable. 'Might she not live with him? No.- Might she not visit him sometimes?' 'No.'-'Might she not-notkeep her child?' 'No.'

Bent upon his purpose, Wedgewood deliberated but for a day or two upon the best means of putting it in execution, and he be thought him of the lady's aunt. Mrs Manners was the best person in the world to take charge of his young wife--so near a relative-so good a friendso kind and discreet a person. He doubted not for a moment that she would do it, and he would go down to Sandibay and make arrangements immediately; he would part with his house at that place; he could not live out

of London but she should; he knew that she hated that dull place, what was that to him? she should board with her aunt, and might come up occasionally to see the child, but the child should never go down to be spoiled by be. He did not, of course, calculate upon the intensity of a mother's affection; such a calculation was quite out of his way; there is no such question in the 'ready reckoner.' He was a little smatterer in the law, that is, as far as the laws of landlord and tenant, debtor and creditor, are concerned; but as to the law royal,' he had never studied that, nor thought of doing as he would be done by. Teaderly as he loved that child, it never crossed his mind he deeply she might love him. He never tried to estimate the amount of anguish that she might endure by putting the case to his own heart. True, his wife seemed to have other objects of regard, while his affections were all centred on that one; yet he might have known something of her feelings by his own. But no, this cold and calloushearted being shut out every sentiment of pity, and when the idea of her anguish presented itself to his mind, Le repulsed that idea with the conclusive sentence-Serves her right.'

Wedgewood had seldom taken his wife to his counsels at any time; it was not likely that he would do so now. His resolution taken, she was merely informed that he was going from home for a few days. There was an air of dogged determination in the man's manner as he buttoned up his greatcoat and drew on his gloves that hinted to the apprehension of his wife some stern resolve. She hung about him with an air of anxious solicitude. 'You do not mean'- she muttered. 'What do I not mean, madam ?' 'You do not mean-what you said ?'

'I always mean what I say,' was his laconism.
'But you will not-you will not send me away?'
'I never change my purpose,' he coldly observed.

'I know,' she sobbed out, I know I have been foolish, very very foolish, but not wicked. I have been vain, and imprudent, and thoughtless, but not criminal. I am very very much to blame, but you might pity me!'

I never pity those who are to blame.' 'But you must, you must forgive me!'

'I never forgive,' he said, and snatching away his arm, he brushed away the tear-drop which she had left upen the cuff of his coat with an exclamation of impatience.

Wedgewood went down and took his seat in the stagecoach, coated, and gloved, and comforted against the weather, for it was raining fast. He gave a glance at the outside passengers, among whom was a delicate-looking young woman with an infant in her arms, and as he pat his foot upon the step, thought there was some comfort in a stage-coach after all. He shouldered himself into his corner of the vehicle with as much care as if he had been superscribed 'glass, this side upwards,' looked at the two ladies, who were his fellow-passengers, with as much suspicion as though they wanted to cheat him out of his due share of accommodation, rested his hands and his chin upon his cane à la Gibbon' in the prints, and shrunk into himself. One could have fancied him a species of thistle, with nemo me impune lacessit' written in every wrinkle of his brow.

Wedgewood reached his residence at Sandibay in the evening. He sent to request Mrs Manners to come and see him; this he did because it still rained heavily, and if be went to see her he should get wet; but his messenger returned with the intelligence that the good lady had left home that very morning for some days. This mightily increased his bad temper, and cost the old woman who kept the house a severe scolding; the old woman, however, being a capital cook, managed to mollify him by tossing up some little dainty with his tea. Then be sat down to write a letter to his wife, in which he told her where he was and what he had come for, detailing all his plans and purposes concerning her, all his cold-hearted schemes for the future, mingling all with stinging sarcasm and bitter inuendo. Somewhat soothed by this amiable employment, conscious that he had made her

lady's demeanour. She did not speak, but there was something so inexpressibly expressive in her face that Wedgewood started immediately to his feet. The demeanour of the lady was the more remarkable, because Mrs Manners was ordinarily a very placid and eventempered woman; but now her face was pale, her very lips were livid, and yet the dew of agitation stood upon her brow. My wife is dead! She has poisoned herself! I thought she would.' Such were the thoughts which rushed with whirlwind rapidity through Wedgewood's mind. A curious idea was that ' I thought she would, and one which it would be difficult to analyse. It showed, however, that Wedgewood was aware how deeply she must feel their separation.

'What in the world's the matter, ma'am?' he exclaimed.

The lady muttered some incoherent expressions. What she said has never been known, never will be known, for neither she nor he could ever tell; but those expressions had a wonderful effect upon Wedgewood, an effect very very different from the thoughts-My wife is dead! She has poisoned herself! I thought she would.' His face grew pale as hers, his lips as livid, he trembled in every joint, but, quickly recovering himself, caught up from habit his walking-stick (his hat was not there), and rushed abruptly from the room. The lady had sunk upon her knees and tried to grasp him as he passed; but he dashed her away, and when the housekeeper came to see the cause of the tumult, she found the lady extended on the floor in a fainting fit. Meanwhile, Wedgewood has left the house, dashed back the gate, traversed the lane, and reached the high road. Breathless with exertion, feeling not a footstep as he goes, but bitterly feeling how far it is to the village, he hurries on. Yes, that is the conviction now that makes his heart sick and his head swim. He has toiled up the hill, and he is actually running down the descent. The cold methodical Wedgewood running. He passes the mile-stone, the finger-post, the pond, but from the latter he averts his face as though he loathed the sight of water. He is at the village at last, but he has been an age-yes, full five minutes-in getting there. The people stare at him; no wonder, so staid and sober a man as Wedgewood without his hat. He is at the Falcon, but he stops not on the threshold. There are groups of people about the door, in the hall, but he speaks to no one; no one speaks to him. He is evidently not a man to be interrupted; there is something in his eye, his demeanour, that says he must not be spoken to. Wedgewood paused for one moment with his foot upon the first stair. It was only to draw one deep convulsive gasp for breath, one sigh to tranquillize his mind and make him the better able to bear the heavy load that lay upon his heart. He could not otherwise have ascended. He now hurried up stairs, he knew which room to go to, for there was a knot of people talking in whispers, and a woman, with red eyes, was closing the door very gently. Closing the door very gently! Then there was hope for him. There must be an invalid in that room; people close the door quietly when there is any one ill. Alas! he knew not that men never slam the door upon a corpse. Wedgewood hastily entered the room, but his heart at once sunk within him, all hope was instantly crushed and annihilated in his breast, for on the bedstead lay the body of a child covered with a sheet. The face was covered as the face of the living is never covered; but he snatched away that covering, and, with a bitter groan, fell with his forehead upon the edge of the bedstead. The blow was severe, but he felt it not; his mental anguish was too great. Alas! he was destined to feel what he had not been at the pains to fancy, the anguish of that heart-broken father. It was his child, his only child, the child of his old age, that lay extended there a lifeless corpse. It was the only object that he had ever loved, now lost to him.

The mystery may be explained in a few words. Mrs Manners, unknown to him, had been summoned by his wife to London, to endeavour to make peace between the

unhappy couple. The good lady had obeyed the sunmons of her niece, but setting out on the very day that Wedgewood came to Sandibay she had actually crossed him on the way. His letter to his wife had informed both ladies where he was, and nothing remained but for Mrs Manners to return home to follow out her plan of pacification. She thought, however, and not unnaturally or unreasonably, that if there was one way of awakering his tenderness for his wife more likely than another, it was by bringing down with her his little son. The child, with its nursery-maid, had accompanied her tə Sandibay on the day preceding the present, but as the lady was not an early riser, the woman had taken her charge out for a stroll on the beach; the event need not be described.

How far Mrs Manners was likely to succeed in her wei of mediation may be left to the conjecture of the reade We would spare that spirit-broken man, writhing beneath this terrible blow, but sunk at present into an unenvialle state of insensibility. He remained for some time in that state in spite of the means which were employed to restore him; he was pale as a corpse, and nearly as cold; but at length the blood returned to his brow, his respiration te came regular, and it was evident that insensibility had subsided into sleep. They left him to repose upon the bed where they had laid him, and for some time be slumbered-deeply, happily, slumbered. But when awoke, alas, the agony of that awaking!—the peace at first, as coming back to consciousness from the beatituds of a tranquil sleep; then a confused remembrance of the past as of some troubled and distressing dream; ther recollection-hideous recollection-memory putting forth her faculty in active power-clearer and clearer and more dreadful still-and the terrible conviction coming that it is no dream. Alas! for the thoughts of anguish that arose in Wedgewood's breast; but bitterest of all was that connected with the woman's words: 'It is so far ta carry it to the Falcon.' He slept no more that day the following night, and they heard him pacing his apart ment in the dead silence and darkness of midnight, groaning with mental agony and muttering— It is so far to carry it to the Falcon.'

Remarkably enough, Wedgewood had no desire to return home. No, though he durst not look upon it again, he could not quit the house where that dead body lay. A sleepless night was succeeded by a miserable day, but towards the evening of that second day he slept again. He was perfectly exhausted and fatigued by mental agony, and he sank into a feverish and troubled slumber. He was terribly awakened. A shriek, a wild appalling shriek, such as makes the ear tingle and the heart thro awoke him. A shriek, so full of human anguish as to make the breast thrill with its deepest sympathies, cause him to start up in bed, and then came the piercing and most touching cry-I will see him-I will see him! must-I must see him!' Wedgewood started from his bed, and locked and double-locked the door, then dres against it a heavy chest of drawers, which at another time he could not have moved. The coward would as soon have met a lioness, would as soon have faced eagle robbed of her young, as have encountered ber who uttered that cry; but no one thought of him, no cat wished to see him, and he lay and listened in an agte of fear.

There is a sort of ennobling influence in deep affliction a kind of dignity in the endurance of uncommon distress, which seems to exalt the sufferer in the eyes of the be holder. Mrs Wedgewood had been an object of cotemptuous regard to her husband; in that hour he woul have quailed beneath her glance. From that moment be felt a deep degree of fear for her, and, what is remarkable, that feeling never afterwards forsook him. We shrink, in conscious incompetence, from attempting t depict a mother's wo, and draw a veil over the scenes which followed.

All the particulars of Wedgewood's refusal to receiv the sufferer came out upon the inquest, with a thousand